


Decisions

by Xie



Series: Only Time [2]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:01:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xie/pseuds/Xie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian and Justin learn that some decisions are harder than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
  
****  
Decisions, Chapter 1  
By Xie

 _"Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are a mere oscillation between flight and longing."_ \- Herman Broch

**Brian’s POV**

There is absolutely no question that Justin is a scheming little shit. And much as I’d like to take credit for developing that aspect of his personality, the truth is, he came with it fully intact when I picked him up under that streetlight.

He also isn’t what you’d call the silent type, so when he suddenly started with the not talking, I was kind of pleased. Five years of more or less incessant chatter had worn me out. So it took me longer than it should have to remember that in addition to never shutting up, Justin is the most calculating person I’ve ever known, and that I was without question being set up for something.

But by then it was too fucking late. He was showing up out of the blue at my loft, he was leaving little art show flyers behind after a weekend of nothing but fucking and sleeping and taking showers, he was curled up warm and horny in the bed at the house, and he came sneaking in the kitchen door two days before Christmas, with a big smile on his face hiding his completely black and devious heart. All tied up with a big bow of sex and not talking about stuff, just what I’d always wanted. Thanks a whole fucking lot, Santa.

Because the next thing I know, we’re fighting over shit we’d already worked out before he left, like whether he needed to be in New York, which he suddenly didn’t seem to think he did.

Of course I argued with him, but at some point I could tell he wasn’t listening, and when I accused him of that, he shrugged. “This isn’t about me being independent or an artist, Brian. It’s about my address. Get over it.”

I started to wonder how it was that after six years, he could still come up with stuff I had to work on figuring out. I mean, when Justin got to New York and right away started with the blank emails, I didn’t really know what was going on with that, but it seemed harmless, and I went along with it without thinking. The kind of thing I later reminded myself isn’t a good idea, going along with things Justin has in mind without thinking. He says or does things, I try not to think about what they mean, and the next thing I know, I’m standing there with my arms or my bed or my loft full of blond and no clear idea how he got there. Or what to do about it. Or how to prevent it from happening in the future. And thinking, wasn’t I supposed to be the complicated one?

Friday morning after the Christmas Justin decided he was moving back, the alarm went off, and I tried to wake him up, but he just mumbled something incoherent and rolled away from me, pulling the pillow over his head. I took that as a subtle hint and showered and got dressed by myself. I was worried he might suffocate under there, so before I left I pulled the pillow off his face. He was all red and had little pillow wrinkles on his cheek, so I had to kiss him and make sure he was still alive. He was.

“Hey.”

He licked his lips and actually managed to get a word out. “Hey.”

“Meet me at the loft for lunch?”

A blue eye looked at me speculatively. “Will there be food or should I eat first?”

I grinned at him. “Eat first.” He gave me half a smooshed up smile and pulled the blankets over his head. I left him there to asphyxiate himself and went to work.

**Justin’s POV**

I decided there’d been way too much lately of me naked in bed and Brian walking in, so I sat down on the sofa to wait for him at the loft. After about ten minutes, he walked in the door, looked around, saw me, and gave a big grin. I smiled back and stood up, and he walked straight into the bedroom, leaving me to follow. Asshole.

He stripped off his jacket and tie and shirt, and stepped out of his pants. Even going to work in his designer suit, he wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“Was that optimism or habit? Or just showing off?”

He smirked. “Optimism. I thought you might come by and blow me at the office.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”

“Yeah, like that’s never happened before.”

I had my clothes off now too, and I pushed the duvet down and got onto the bed. Brian lay down behind me, wrapping his arms around me and twining his legs into mine. I bent a little at the waist and pushed my butt into his groin. He laughed and started slithering down, taking the blanket with him, running his tongue down my back. I rolled onto my stomach. I’m nothing if not cooperative when Brian wants to lick my ass.

He was making me wet with his tongue and I lifted up my hips, trying to get more, when he slipped a finger in, and then another one. The whole time his tongue kept lapping around my opening and sliding inside. He was fluttering his fingers over my prostate, and I kept backing a little closer to his mouth and hand. I reached under myself and grabbed my cock and started to jerk off, slowly. I felt him laugh against my ass and it felt so good I had to move a little faster, and shove myself back into him a little more.

He kept his fingers in my ass but moved up to lie next to me. I turned my head to him and kissed him. He was on his side facing me, his fingers still inside me, his other hand behind my neck and pulling me into him for the kiss. He pulled me all the way on top of him, his fingers slipping out. I straddled him, my cock standing up against my stomach and dripping a little bit. I rocked back and forth slowly, feeling his hard cock under me, sliding it up and down in the crack of my ass.

He rested his hands on my thighs and looked at me. Brian has a way of looking right into my eyes that can be unnerving and also very erotic, depending on the circumstances. Right now it was a little bit of both. But I didn’t look away. Or even blink.

He had just the smallest smile on his lips. “We should probably talk about this instead of just almost doing it and one of us stopping at the last minute.”

I rolled off him and lay down next to him. Some conversations worked better when I didn’t have to look into his face. Or sit on his dick.

 “You’re asking if I’m making a veiled request for your eternal and exclusive sexual fidelity in exchange for fucking me without a condom.”

He nodded. “Are you?”

“I already asked for everything I wanted.” It sounded kind of dismissive so I kissed him softly after I said it. He kissed me back and rolled me over on my back, throwing his leg over me and putting his hands in my hair along the sides of my face. He kissed me again, almost just a peck.

I kissed him, much more than just a peck. I sucked on his tongue and wriggled under him so he was more on top of me, and tried to get my legs up and around him. He wasn’t totally cooperating.

“Brian?” He didn’t say anything right away. I couldn’t quite read the look on his face.

He locked his eyes on mine. “I want to be sure you didn’t just ask for everything you thought you could get.”

I tucked my head under his chin so he couldn’t see my face. “I just… I want to feel you come inside me.”

Brian kissed me softly on my forehead.  “We need to talk about this when we’re not naked in bed.”

“Yeah, I know.” I felt kind of embarrassed. Brian just held me for a little while, stroking my hair.

I sighed. “Brian, I really don’t care if you fuck other guys. I never have. Well, not never. But not since I was old enough to vote.”

“And I don’t care if you fuck other guys, either. It goes both ways.”

I knew that. I just thought maybe he cared if I _didn’t_ fuck other guys. “The thing is, Brian, I just want to do what I want to do, and not what you think I should do, or what anyone else thinks I should do. About that or anything else.”

“Well, you should.”

“Yeah, you say that until there’s something in my life you don’t approve of and then you totally forget you ever said it.”

“True.”

“So, fine, I’m free to fuck other guys, or not fuck them. Whatever. Just like I can live where I want and work where I want and love you if I want and not have you going all drama queen on me like last time.”

“Last time being what?”

“When I left for New York.”

“Is that what I did?”

I laughed. “Oh please. Brian. You never thought you’d see me again, admit it.”

He didn’t say anything. I turned my head and he was looking right at me. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

The look in his eyes made me crazy, and I couldn’t stand it. I threw my arms around his neck. He stretched his whole weight on me, pinning me down. I kept my arms around his neck and spread my legs wide for him, and bent my knees.

Sometimes during sex, when “I love you, I love you, I love you” was running through my head in an unbroken chant, I almost let it slip out so he could hear it. I never did. I would swallow the words and groan or ask him to fuck me or ask for it harder or faster or just say his name. Or do what I did now, and try to get his entire body and soul inside of me somehow. My desire to protect him could sometimes overwhelm everything else. And I knew he’d hate to hear that, even while he was burrowing into me like I was the last safe place on earth.

With me, the amount of tenderness I felt for him translated into more tenderness, but for Brian, it translated into mind-obliterating sex. He was capable of incredible sexual gentleness, of teasing and softness and moments of empathy that left me feeling like Brian was energy moving through me and filling up every empty space inside me. But when Brian was overcome with tender feelings, it made him rough and messy and frantic, like he was struggling to get control of something that was getting away from him.

And sometimes that wasn’t tender, and it hurt, with teeth on my skin and hands leaving bruises on my thighs and hips and arms, and his cock tearing into me so hard I’d still feel it days later. Sometimes even coming like that would hurt me, burning up out of me like actual fire and cramping and a pain like I was trying to hold it back, even when I wasn’t. And that day at the loft, god, that’s what it was like. I had my legs up on his shoulders and he was pressing me back so hard I almost couldn’t get a breath in or out. And when I came it took me by surprise, a burn that spread out from where his cock was hitting me inside, and then just overflowed, like it was water filling the room and I was immersed in it, instead of something coming from inside of me and pouring out.  

And then he growled my name and snapped his hips into me, and I felt him shudder and freeze, and then fall onto me.

**Brian’s POV**

I tried to move off Justin, but I couldn’t. It’s possible if the loft had been on fire, I’d have just lain there on him like I was already dead. There could be worse ways to die, than completely and totally boneless after fucking Justin, with him lying under me and my cock still inside him.

I must have fallen asleep or passed out or maybe just gotten lost somewhere, but I came back enough to get my dick out of him and the condom off and most of my weight off him. That pretty much wore me out and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get dressed, let alone go back to work. And the meeting I had that was the whole reason for working today was at 3. I didn’t even have the energy to check the time.

I had no idea if Justin was awake or not, and I didn’t really care. I just wanted to lie where we were, and not talk or think or move, for pretty much the entire foreseeable future or until his stomach started to rumble. I hoped he’d had lunch already.

He must have been hungry, because a little later I felt him nibbling on my arm where it was lying across his mouth. I meant to smile but I couldn’t even move enough to do that. He bit a little harder and the jolt of adrenaline was enough to let me move my arm.

“What time is it?” I guessed at some point I’d have to know.

Justin didn’t answer and I started to drift off again, when I felt him gather himself up under me, lift his head a little, and then drop it back down on the pillow. “A little after two.”

Fuck. I reached down for some reserve of energy and actually managed to sit up. Justin, the little shit, just smiled at me from the pillows.

“I think this is where we started the day. You all warm and sleepy and me getting ready to go to work. I thought you didn’t want to be the wife?”

Justin laughed. “Don’t blame me that you’re a fucking workaholic, Brian. If you want to trade your job for mine, just say the word.”

“Your ex-job.”

He blinked. “Yeah. Ex-job. Wow, maybe I really am the wife. I don’t actually have a job anymore, do I?”

“Think about that later. Right now, come take a shower with me.”

“I’m so not doing that.”

“Then I’ll just go to my meeting smelling of fuck.”

“I’m sure it won’t be the first time.” And he rolled over while I went and took a shower.

When I came out, he was actually up and dressed and sitting at the kitchen counter drinking some juice. I went over to him and kissed him while I fastened my cufflinks. He looped his arms around my waist inside my jacket and rested his forehead on my chest. His voice came out all muffled. “I was going to go to New York today and get my stuff, and come back tomorrow or maybe Sunday. But maybe I’ll wait.”

“Is there stuff you need?”

“At my studio. And I need to go see Armand and make sure he can store my big canvases until the show, otherwise I have to get them shipped here and I have no idea if the shippers can do that, they may just transport art inside New York City.”

“Wait ‘til next week, I’ll go with you.”

“Mmmm, Brian in New York. That means we add an extra two days for you to buy clothes.”

“I see you’ve met me before.” Justin pulled his head back then and looked up at me. He was smiling, but I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. The boy needed a nap. “Just take it easy, Justin. Why don’t you go home, or even just stay here and get some sleep?”

He yawned. He kissed me. He went back to bed. That was easy. I was sure I’d pay for it later.

**Justin’s POV**

I wasn’t really looking forward to driving to, or in, New York, so if Brian wanted to watch me pack up my studio in his Armani clothes, and drive me around in cabs and limos, and pay for an expensive hotel room and take me out to hot clubs at night, I wasn’t going to argue.

The first time he’d been to my studio in New York, I’d worried he’d be appalled. He hadn’t seemed too thrilled with my studio in Pittsburgh, which was bigger and maybe slightly less grungy than the co-op, but he walked into it cool and self-contained, as if everyone wore expensive clothes and shoes and drove up in a limo down there. Seeing Brian walking around my studio was like seeing someone walking a panther on a leash on a city street. When Kalli or her friends looked at my work, they would crouch on the floor or hoist themselves up onto my worktable, and stare and talk and ask me questions. He just walked from piece to piece, tilting his head to see the ones hung up high.

He shook his head. “I almost don’t know what to say that you’ll believe. I know you know these are good. And I know art is like any other product, it’s all about what sells and for how much, not about how good something is.” He paced over to the first one he’d seen, and then looked back at me. “These are good enough to make me doubt that’s true.”

I did know they were good. I was happy when Kalli liked them. I was happier when Armand liked them and wanted them for the group show. But for some reason having Brian like them did something weird to my stomach that no one else could do. He must have seen that on my face because he came over to me and just stood looking at the paintings, his arm over my shoulders.

I knew that letting him see this work was a risk, because he was going to think it was all because of New York. And to be honest, it was partly New York. Working in this space had helped me, it’s how I’d met Armand, and if my stuff did well in the group show, that alone really could make all the difference for me.

But that had nothing to do with how good my work was. I carried that around with me everywhere I went.

Besides, I was tired, tired of people saying that wanting to be with Brian was immature and romantic and meant turning my back on art. I was tired of being presented with two choices and hearing, it’s one or the other. That was the real bullshit. There are never only two choices. There are two choices, and then there’s everything between them.  
   
But I was still in the “no talking about stuff” stage of things, so I didn’t say any of it, and just hugged him.

**Brian’s POV**

Justin’s paintings were the kind of thing that makes you wish you weren’t cynical and jaded and that you didn’t know better than to believe in miracles. Even if I was biased - and he was right, of course I was - I’d seen enough art, spent enough hours in galleries and museums and working with artists, to know that he was more than good. I had no idea why he was even asking me for my opinion, but he was. And I felt the strangest feeling in my stomach when I saw the look on his face when I gave it to him. And for the first time I wondered how I was going to leave him here and go back, because I suddenly wanted to be the one to make him feel that way about every painting he ever did.

But we went out and got into the back of the car, and I took him shopping and bought him things he didn’t really want, and took him back to the hotel and fucked him in the shower, and tried not to think about leaving him here at all.

We were sitting on the bed, me flipping channels with the remote and Justin on his laptop, checking email. He had his tongue caught between his teeth, and I knew if we didn’t get out of this room, I was going to fuck him again, and we’d be here all night.

“We should go to dinner.” He looked up at me, surprised.

“That’s a switch, you bringing up food. Do you actually eat when you’re out of town?”

“I’m just trying to be proactive, before your stomach starts making those noises. It’s embarrassing.”

We went out to dinner and then I took him to a club Kinnetik had done the advertising campaign for, a huge renovated space in Chelsea. He was wearing the clothes I’d bought for him that afternoon, which was a good thing, because I wouldn’t have been caught dead with him there in his usual clothes. But in a pair of pants that actually fit and a shirt that just skimmed his waistband? All in black with his blond hair and white skin? I didn’t mind. In fact, I actually couldn’t seem to keep my hands off him.

My name was on the guest list, and we were ushered upstairs to the VIP room. Justin stood on the catwalk, looking down on the dance floor. I stood behind him, holding him. Still having that problem with keeping my hands off him.

**Justin’s POV**

This club had a second dance floor upstairs, that you could only get into through the VIP room. I wanted to check it out, but Brian stopped me by pulling me hard into him. He leaned his head down and kissed me, and I felt his tongue, and something on his tongue, slide between my lips. I only hesitated a second before taking the little tab of E. It was the weekend. After I swallowed it, he started to lick the inside of my lips, and made the kiss deep and hard. Then he pulled back from me, took a swallow of his beer, and then leaned back down to me and gave me a little bit of that, too.

I was more or less dancing with him when it started to hit me. I say more or less because some people might have described it as making out on the dance floor. It was Brian’s and my own personal dancing style. I wrapped my arms around his neck and went up on my toes and started showering his jaw and face with kisses. I undid the last buttons on his black shirt and kissed his chest. He slid his hands down my back and cupped my ass and pulled me into him, grinding our cocks together. I loved when he did that.

“I love when you do that.” I kissed his neck.

Brian laughed and took my hands off his shoulders, and then pulled me back into the VIP room. He held my hand and took me over to the bar, got me a bottle of water, and led me over to a sofa in an alcove. It was really dark there, and I saw couples on sofas in other alcoves. I guess it’s what they were there for.

Brian sat down with one leg on the floor and the other up on the sofa, and pulled me in between his legs, my back to him, and made me drink more of the water than I wanted. I giggled when some of it spilled out of my mouth, and I twisted around and knelt between his spread legs, and started kissing him with my wet mouth. I thought that was really funny, the cold water and his hot tongue. Funny and hot. Especially when he pressed his hand between my legs while I did it. That was more hot than funny, though.

**Brian’s POV**

Justin was just flying. He was kneeling in between my legs and I was groping his crotch and he was moaning and rutting into my hand and nuzzling my neck and whispering dirty talk in my ear. I was leaning back against the sofa arm and the wall, and he was kneeling up tall in front of me. I pushed his shirt up and pulled his stomach in to my mouth and started kissing it. He threw his head back and laughed softly, his hands in my hair. He was so easily distracted when he was like that.

I glanced to the side while I tongued his stomach and realized that while no one was doing anything so obvious as standing around watching, pretty much every guy and more than a few of the women were staring at us. This wasn’t a sex club, hell, it wasn’t even really a gay club, although this was probably not the first sex these couches had ever seen. And it was dark in the alcove. I opened Justin’s pants and pushed them down on his hips. He giggled and started to stroke his cock when it bounced out of his pants. I pushed his pants down to his knees.

I twisted him around so his bare ass was pressing into my crotch and slid his pants all the way off. He laughed again and kicked them down to the bottom of the sofa. His bare legs were spread out, the left one lying inside mine against the sofa back, his right one lying on top of mine, sliding off the couch. His foot didn’t touch the floor, though.

He arched back into me, tipping his head all the way back and turning it slightly to the left so he could kiss me on the mouth. Both his arms were lifted up behind him, one hand in my hair and the other tucked behind my neck. At this point, several guys really were frankly standing around us watching, closing in a tight circle that created a feeling of privacy. Not that Justin even had his eyes open. I had my left hand on his cock and was stroking it slowly, slowly, and he was writhing against me, his legs falling open. I ran my right hand up under his black shirt, pulling it up, still kissing him.

I pulled my hand away from his chest and groped around down on the floor until I found the fallen water bottle, pulled the sports top open, and brought it up to his face and made him drink some. He let it spill out of his mouth again and then half twisted himself around and dribbled some into my mouth and down onto my chest, laughing softly like it was the cleverest thing he’d ever done. Then he licked my face and my chest, chasing all the drops of water. “Wet Brian, my favorite flavor.” He laughed a little with his lips pressed into the side of my throat.

I looked up and locked eyes with the guy nearest our end of the sofa. He was tall, with dark hair and the most intense eyes. I raised an eyebrow and those eyes flickered down Justin’s body, and I shifted him a little, making his legs fall open a little more, and almost imperceptibly nodded.

The guy moved fast then, and put his hand on top of mine on Justin’s cock, and I slid mine away. I rested both my hands on Justin’s stomach, and Justin put his hands on top of mine. His breathing got faster and shallower, and I looked down at his face. He was watching the guy between his legs, his lips just a little open, all pink and wet, his eyes half closed. His tongue was there, just inside his open mouth, just the tip of it visible. I glanced at the guy, who has licking at Justin’s cock, his hands resting on Justin’s thighs, stroking them softly while he ran his tongue up and down the shaft.

Justin started moving a little restlessly, making small sounds and closing his eyes. He tried to pull his hands back but I grabbed them and held them down with mine, on his stomach. That seemed to calm him, even though his breathing was getting faster. He licked his lips and I suddenly wanted to kiss him.  I pulled him up a little higher on my chest, the guy following him with his mouth and kneeling between Justin’s and my spread legs on the sofa. I licked Justin’s lips, and his mouth opened, and I kissed and licked and nibbled at his lower lip, and then I kissed him, hard, with our mouths open. He tried to move his hands again, and this time I let him, and he brought both our hands down to the head of the guy blowing him. He left mine there, his resting on my forearms, letting me guide the guy’s head.

The feeling of that was incredible. I was reading Justin’s body like I did when we fucked, but it was someone else sucking his cock, and I was feeling it through my hands like I did when I tangled my fingers in Justin’s hair while he blew me. I was so hard I almost thought I could come just from the almost-friction of Justin’s ass moving inside the curve of my crotch, like some teenager getting off in the backseat of a car. And then another man dropped to his knees on the floor next to the sofa, and started licking at the inside of Justin’s right thigh where it splayed over mine. Justin moaned again, this time loudly, and pressed his ass more firmly back into me, and then shifted forward.

I slid my left hand down the outside of Justin’s thigh, and hooked my hand in under the back of his knee and pulled his leg up hard, making him slide down from the force of it, holding his leg up. The guy blowing him immediately moved to his right, licking and kissing at the inside of Justin’s leg, and then down it toward his asshole. The guy on the floor moved up, letting Justin’s leg fall onto his shoulder, pressing it outward, sucking Justin’s balls. Justin started to arch again, his cock abandoned while one guy licked his hole and the other sucked at the inside of his thigh, and then back to his balls, and then back to his thighs. Justin was going nuts, trying to move my hands to his cock, but I resisted. And when he brought his own hand there, I pulled it away.

I felt him turning in my arms, probably trying to get more tongue in his ass, or to get some friction on his cock, or for no reason at all, just mindlessly moving. I almost let him, thinking about his ass in the air in front of all these people, thinking about him getting fucked while I held him, thinking about fucking him myself. But I thought maybe it was better not to push it any more than we already were. That’s why Justin was flying on E but I was just a little drunk. One of us could still think.

The guy eating Justin’s ass must have stuck a finger in it along with his tongue, because suddenly Justin’s whole body went tense and he bucked upwards. I pulled back harder on his left leg, trying to see, and yeah, the guy’s hand was in there, and he was moving it in and out, finger fucking him while he rimmed him. The other guy had his hand on Justin’s balls and started to suck his cock, working mostly on the head while he squeezed the base with his other hand. Justin went absolutely still and then turned his face into my chest and gasped while his come poured out of the guy’s mouth, down onto Justin’s belly and pubes and onto the sofa. The guy rimming him pulled his head back and I let Justin’s leg drop, and the two of them licked every bit of come off of Justin, until he was wet and clean, and then I pulled Justin up into my arms and kissed him and held him tight, until his breath went back to normal and his heart stopped pounding.

Then I gave him some more water, had one more cold/hot kiss, and whispered in his ear, “That was so fucking hot.” He just nuzzled my neck and closed his eyes and smiled.

**Justin’s POV**

When I got back to the house, Lindsay and Melanie had left a note saying they were going to Debbie’s for dinner with the kids. I’d slept almost all afternoon, and I remembered why I thought today was a good day to go to New York: I had fuck all to do. Brian was coming home late, I had nothing here to paint with, and at this point I thought taking another nap was really overdoing it.

I tried watching TV but when I noticed myself dozing off on the couch, I got up and went into the kitchen and checked to see if there was anything I could use to cook dinner. Lindsay and Melanie had been doing the grocery shopping, so amazingly, there was. I got my laptop and looked online for a recipe that had no fat, carbohydrates, or calories, and finally gave up and decided just to make something good and then lie to Brian about the nutritional composition of dinner. Then my cell phone rang.

I assumed it was Brian and didn’t look at the caller ID. It was my mom. She was at Debbie’s for dinner and extremely surprised to find out I was in town from Mel and Lindz. Shit.

It’s not that I was avoiding her. She and Molly had gone to Mexico for Christmas, and I wasn’t exactly sure when they were coming back, but I really did mean to let her know I was in town. And moving back. With Brian. None of which would necessarily have bothered her, assuming I could have given her the story in my own way. And it seemed the girls had told her about my new car, so now I was suddenly “invited” to dinner. There are people on earth who can resist both my mom and Debbie at the same time. I’m not one of them. I called Brian on his cell but it rolled to voice mail, so I left him a message saying I was going to Debbie’s and he should come there after his meeting. And then I headed out.

**Brian’s POV**

I didn’t realize my cell was still off, so when I got home and no one was there, I was sort of confused. Justin’s laptop was on the kitchen table, and for a minute I wondered if he was still at the loft. Then I checked my messages, and found out he was at Debbie’s. Fuck.

I also had a call from Ted, asking me to call him back as soon as I could, so I phoned him at home. He started talking about some shit that hadn’t gone right at the meeting and I got annoyed and told him to come to the house if he insisted on dealing with this on a Friday night, and bring food.

I decided if I was going to have to work on a Friday night, I was going to be fucking wasted when I did it. I had a few drinks. I started thinking of ways to punish Debbie and Jennifer for luring Justin away. That made me feel tense so I smoked some pot and then had another drink. I was just beginning to relax when I heard Ted’s car pulling into the driveway. I met him at the door. I forgot I still had my bottle.

“You are totally fucked up.” Gosh, Ted, you’re a genius.

“Not totally. Yet.”

“OK, Justin and Mel and Lindz aren’t here.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

“Brilliant. You didn’t figure that out when I said you could come over? Remind me to cancel that raise I gave you.”

“You haven’t given me a raise that I know of. And I’d know if you had, since I’d have to approve it.” Logic. Accountants. I went over to the bar, took another mouthful before setting the bottle down, and lit a cigarette. I went over to the couch. Lying down suddenly seemed like a good idea. I waved vaguely toward the bar. “Help yourself. I’m sure there’s some girly shit over there you can drink.”

Ted sighed, went out into the kitchen, and came back with a diet coke in his hand. The munchers kept that toxic shit around.

“OK, Brian, I don’t think there’s much point in us talking now, is there? Maybe I’ll just head out. I can heat this food up for you before I go, you should eat something.”

I rolled off the couch and onto the floor. I meant to do it gracefully but I sort of thumped my head. It didn’t hurt. I was way past the stage where I could feel pain.

I lay there on the floor staring up at the ceiling of the media room. The lighting guy had done some weird thing with the fixtures in here, they were all sparkly. I heard Ted sigh, and come over and sit on the floor next to me. “Uh, Brian? Still with me?”

I blew a smoke ring towards the ceiling. “Are you and Blake monogamous?” Where the fuck had that question come from? Maybe Ted was onto something with this sobriety thing.

“Yeah. Why?”

“What’s that like?” Fuck. I needed to shut up soon. Maybe drugs really are bad.

Ted looked alarmed. “Why are you asking me these questions? You’re scaring the crap out of me, Brian.”

I shrugged and reached up and stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray on the table next to the couch. I thought longingly of the bottle of Jack Daniels all the way over on the bar. “Just curious.”

“Right. OK, what it’s like is, it’s great. Like Claudio Abbado’s new recording of The Magic Flute is great. Meaning, I like it but that doesn’t mean you’d like it too.”

I thought about that for a few minutes. “I hate opera.”

“You asked.”

“Do you guys fuck raw?”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Just curious.”

“You and Justin have never…”

I shook my head and rolled over on my stomach, away from Ted. He was sitting up cross-legged and staring at me. Made me nervous.

“You’re considering monogamy… MONOGAMY, which as you so often point out is a word closely related to MONOTONY … in order to fuck Justin without a condom?”

When he put it that way, it sounded so perfectly accurate. “Yeah.”

“Brian, are you fucking insane? Why?”

“What part of fucking Justin in the ass without a condom do you not understand?”

“That’s a secondary benefit to monogamy, not a reason to be.”

“I suppose it would show what a totally irredeemable hedonistic asshole I am to admit it’s the most compelling argument in favor of it that I can come up with?”

“You mean other than your deep and abiding love for him?”

I gave him a look that was supposed to come out a glare, but he didn’t seem scared so I figured my face must not be working right. I decided to try words. “What the fuck does monogamy have to do with any feelings I might have for Justin?”

“Sometimes people have sex with someone as a way of expressing love.” Yeah, and sometimes people wear clothes they bought at the Big Q. That seemed really profound to me so I repeated it out loud. Ted sighed. He had the same patient look on his face he used when he explained to new employees how to fill out their tax information forms.

“Sometimes people decide to have sex just with one person, the person they love, as a way of showing their commitment to that person, and to their relationship. They choose to be faithful to that person because they love them.”

 “Sex with other guys has nothing to do with Justin.” This made perfect sense to me. I really didn’t see why Ted looked confused.

“Has Justin asked you to be monogamous?” I shook my head.

“Then why are you freaking out over this?”

“The condom thing.”

Ted sighed. “Brian, you need to talk this over with Justin. Later, you know, like tomorrow, when the blood levels in your alcohol have risen.”

“You know something, Theodore?” He just looked at me.

“I am So. Totally. Fucked.”

“I won’t tell anyone.” He helped me back up to the sofa, said he’d leave the food in the fridge, and he’d call me tomorrow. Just as I was slipping off, he said, “Although everyone already knows.” Or maybe I just imagined it.


	2. Chapter 2

  
  
  
  
**  
****Decisions, Chapter 2**  
By Xie

“ _In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature._ ” - Sigmund Freud

**Justin’s POV**

Some nights it was me, some nights it was him.

His mouth pressed to my ass, licking and tongue fucking me, and then he’d crawl up my back and I’d feel him lying there, heavy, weighing me down, all that heat and skin and I wanted to feel it. Wanted to go up on my knees and spread my cheeks and feel his cock drop between them. Wanted him to fuck me raw.

And then he’d pull back a little and I’d hear the sound of the condom wrapper ripping, and I’d bury my face in my arms and try not to think about it anymore.

Other times, he’d be kissing my back and I’d feel him slide down me, rubbing his cock up and down in the crack of my ass, sometimes letting his cock drop down between my thighs and fucking me there, and I knew, absolutely knew, if I lifted up just that little bit more, he’d have been in me. But something held me back, mostly knowing Brian would never forgive himself, and maybe never forgive me. These were the kinds of things you were supposed to talk about and work out and plan and decide on. Not something you did in the darkness, in bed, without talking about it, because you wanted it, because you wanted to feel him come inside you, wanted to put your hand back and touch your asshole and feel it overflowing with his come. And didn’t want to wait or talk or get into the whole impossible discussion of making it real.

**Brian’s POV**

I always knew if I wanted to, Justin would. He’d have done it when he was 18 and stupid, he’d have done it when he’d gotten smart. Smart about the world, about men and the things they’ll say to get in your ass, gotten smart about me. It had been a long time, six years, and all the talk I’d given him about how I wasn’t different had worn thin. Of course this was different. Of course I wasn’t just anyone.

So it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t always sticking with the program and I was sometimes forgetting it myself, forgetting why this mattered so much, when I was in a dark room in a warm bed with Justin underneath me, pushing back or arching himself, letting me know in every way short of asking for it, what he wanted, what he’d do.

That night he was rutting up against me, pulling on my hips, twining his legs around my back. He’d lubed himself before I got into bed, which I found out when he stopped me from rimming him. He pressed my fingers into him instead. He was incredibly wet. And tight. He squeezed down on my fingers. He never took his eyes off mine. I reached out my hand for a condom and I felt a little breath, an exhalation, from him, disappointment, a swallowed word, I wasn’t sure. I put it on and then pushed into him and he lifted up for me, and I went into him, slowly at first, then faster, his legs wound around me, his ankles crossed behind my back, his arms thrown back behind his head.

I bent down and kissed him, kissing his full lower lip, biting and licking at his pout. He suddenly threw his arms around my neck, pulling me down, sucking my tongue into his mouth. He let it go, and pressed his mouth to my ear. “I want you, I want you inside me, I want to reach down my hand and feel your skin sliding into me, so hot Brian.” I couldn’t help it, I started moving faster. I felt his ass walls squeezing on me, releasing, working my cock, wanting to make me come.

He kept talking, low and husky, in my ear. “It would feel so hot. I want to feel you come and then touch it and feel it leaking out of me, running out of me.”

That shot through me like adrenaline, like drugs, like desire. I could hardly breathe, and I couldn’t stop thrusting into him, too fast and too hard, but I couldn’t stop it. He was making me crazy, the words and his breath and his ass milking me.

“I want to feel full of your come. I want to feel it.” And I snapped my hips into him one last time, and just came, overflowing into the condom, and he held onto me, and when I looked at his face, he turned it away from me.

**Justin's POV**

“Don’t be embarrassed.” It was Brian’s voice, rough and hot in my ear. But I was. I kept my face turned away, even when he kissed my neck and pulled out of me as gently as he could, and tossed the condom, and started to jerk me off. I covered my face with my arms. Brian hated it when I did that, but I couldn’t help it.

His hand was moving on me, and it felt good. He was kissing my neck, biting at it a little, nuzzling me. I arched my back, feeling the ache from when he was inside me before, and the pull in my thighs from when they were up around him while he fucked me.

I felt empty and wished he was still inside me. He moved his hand faster and my cock got slipperier when he flicked his thumb over my slit and smeared the wetness he found there over it. I forgot about my embarrassment as I felt my balls pull up and I felt myself start to spill out, to come, and I turned my face back to him and let him kiss me. I kissed him back, feeling his tongue fucking my mouth while his hand jerked me off, and my come spilled out over his hand and shot up onto my stomach.

I put my hand on his to stop it from moving; all of a sudden it was too much. His face was buried in my neck. My heart was pounding. And then he scooped the come up off my stomach and reached down between my thighs and smeared it on my hole and pressed two fingers into me. I gasped and felt a deep cramp almost everywhere, in my ass and my gut and maybe my heart, all at the same time. I wasn’t coming anymore but it felt like I was, and it hurt. His tongue was deep inside my mouth and I was just holding on, feeling his fingers fucking me.

I unhooked one arm from around his neck and reached down and touched his hand at my ass, and closed my fingers on it. He stopped moving, but left his fingers inside me, covered with my come.

“Justin.” I kept my eyes closed. He didn’t say anything more.

**Brian’s POV**

New Year’s Day I woke up late, like every normal person in America who’d been out until 3 in the morning – and _unlike_ the blond I live with, who was nowhere to be found, which meant he was in his studio. Melanie and Lindsay must have taken the kids somewhere, because there was no sign of them, either. They were staying for a few weeks, while they looked for a place to live and jobs back here in Pittsburgh.

There was coffee in the kitchen, and it was hot, so I decided to forgive Justin for not being there to give me my morning blowjob. I was sure we’d agreed on him blowing me whenever I wanted, though he probably had some loophole in there for major holidays. But I was optimistic, so I poured him a cup too and headed to the studio.

The door was open and I went in. He was sitting cross-legged on his table, looking up at the big blank wall. Blank as in, having nothing on it that he could have been looking at.

“What are you looking at?” He jumped a little, and then smiled at me.

“Just thinking about something I want to do, wondering if I have room in here. And being glad I’m not in my old studio where I wouldn’t even be wondering, I’d know.” He took the coffee and I tried to figure out how to change the subject from art to blowjobs. I possibly should have had the coffee first, and let the caffeine saturate my neural pathways. I kept getting distracted by how happy he looked thinking about his big studio here and being glad he wasn’t in New York.

“Brian? Justin?” And there went any residual hope. That was Lindsay’s voice. She came into the studio, still in her coat and scarf, her cheeks and nose red from the cold, her knit cap in her hands. I heard a door slam in the front hall and the sound of Gus laughing. “We were wondering if you’d ever get up. We took the kids to the park.”

Justin set down his mug and jumped off the table. “Lindz, do you know how I can get a scaffold in here? I want to do a really big thing. Over there.” He nodded towards the blank wall he’d been staring at. I wandered out. The two of them could be at this for hours. I went upstairs and jerked off in the shower.

Last night was the first time Justin and I had been at Babylon together since the club re-opened, at least, other than a quick look during the daytime, when no one was around and all the lights were on. This was the first time I’d walked in there with him since before the bombing, with the lights flashing and glitter falling and the music thumping, and all my employees acting like Justin walked into that club every night of his life, saying “Good evening, Mr. Taylor” when we walked by. Even the ones who’d never laid eyes on him before.

I was particularly surprised at everyone’s ability to recognize Justin, since he was wearing the New York club clothes I’d bought him on my last visit, and not his usual pants four sizes too big and a baggy sweater. When I’d tossed them at him while he was getting dressed he’d actually blushed. Which made me have to fuck him before we could go out, but really, it didn’t take much to get me to do that lately.

I was just about to go up the stairs with Justin when a brightly glittered creature in black eyeliner came dancing over to us.

“Sweeties! Happy New Year!”

Justin stood on his toes and kissed Emmett on his cheek. I caught sight of the head of security talking agitatedly on his headset, and excused myself for a minute. Emmett dragged Justin out on the dance floor.

After I checked with security and got myself a drink, I didn’t feel like dancing, so I went upstairs to the office. Ted was there with one of the sound guys, looking at some paperwork.

“I realize you can’t drink or fuck, Theodore, but do you have to work on New Year’s Eve?”

Ted looked up and raised his chin in my direction. “We’re just finishing up, anything else we need to go over, Ron?” There wasn’t, so Ron, or as I thought of him, the sound guy, left. I went and sat at the desk and leaned back in the chair. Ted was watching me. I had the unnerving sensation he was laughing at me.

“What’s up, Brian? You’re not dancing, drinking, drugging, or dragging someone into the back room? Has the sky fallen? Hell frozen over? Will I look out the door and see little pigs flying around?”

I shrugged and turned the chair around to look at the shelves behind the desk. “Justin’s dancing with Emmett.”

Ted nodded. “Yeah, I try not to be seen dancing with the two of them, it can really destroy what little self-confidence I have.”

I turned my chair back around to face him. “So, did you give everyone photos of Justin or just a general description?”

He didn’t even pretend not to know what I was talking about. “We showed a fifteen-minute instructional video.”

“Theodore?”

Ted still looked smug. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“You know, I can fire you. I could have you replaced in about ten minutes by any number of people glad to work for half what I pay you.”

“Yeah, I can see that now. I go to apply for a new job, they ask why I left Kinnetik, and I tell them, Brian Kinney fired me because I wouldn’t stop teasing him about his boyfriend.”

“Fine. Then I’ll have you killed instead of just fired.”

Ted walked over to the door. “You know what else, Brian? It would be worth getting fired, and maybe even killed, just to have the inestimable joy of seeing you slide ever-further into the pit of fire, kicking and screaming and grabbing at branches all the way down. Have a great time with Justin in New York.” And he walked out of the room.

I was sure I must have fucked a hit man or two, I was going to have to find one who owed me a favor.

I went back downstairs and saw Justin where I’d left him, dancing with Emmett. I came up behind him and scooped him up close to me, and he didn’t even open his eyes, just leaned back into me and smiled. I met Emmett’s eyes over his head and raised an eyebrow. He grinned and said, “Just one little tab of E. He asked so pretty.” Then Justin turned around in my arms and started kissing me and I had no fucking idea where Emmett went after that.

After making out with Justin on the dance floor like I was in high school, undoubtedly to the glee of all my employees who were probably preparing blackmail video footage at that very moment, I dragged him over to the bar and got him a bottle of water. He never seemed to want to drink enough water when he was high, and I always had to make him. He usually had no aversion to anything else I wanted to put in his mouth at times like that, so I kissed him and got a mouthful of cold water for it. And then he giggled. And then he went up on his toes and kissed me again, this time without the water surprise. And then I looked up and saw Ted leaning on the bar behind Justin, looking remarkably happy for a man who was going to be out of work, or possibly dead, the next day. And standing next to him, looking even happier, if by “happy” you mean “gloating,” was Melanie.

“So, Justin.” It was Ted. “Mel tells me Santa was very good to you this Christmas. You must have been an awfully good boy.” Melanie laughed and spewed beer out her nose.

Justin turned around in my arms and gave Ted a blissful look. “Yeah, Ted, he brought me an iPod and a car and ummm, a bottle of water, and I think some other stuff. He bought me this, too.” And he held out a corner of his shirt, exposing his flat stomach. I forgot what I was going to say to Ted. “Only not for Christmas. He got me that in New York when he visited me. Because otherwise he has to be all embarrassed at my pants. But he just took them off anyway, so I don’t know why…” I got my hand over his mouth and turned him around and pushed his face into my shoulder. I’d remembered that doing drugs made Justin horny, I’d forgotten they also disconnected the filter between his brain and his mouth.

“Hey, guys! Happy New Year!” It was Mikey and the Professor. It suddenly struck me that, after his abdominal muscles, Ben’s total lack of a sense of humor was his finest quality.

Justin had pulled away from me to hug Michael and Ben, and then Ben said, “So, Justin, I heard you got a new car for Christmas,” with a big dopey grin on his face.

I put down my drink and headed for the stairs. I felt a hand on my arm. Mikey.

“Hey! I just got here, where ya going?” I shook off his hand.

“Where do you think I’m going?”

“I think you’re going to get your dick sucked.”

“Are you volunteering, or did you just want to watch?”

“No, what I had in mind is more of an intervention.”

I didn’t mean to but I laughed. I cut it off fast, though. “Save it for Ted and his 12-step losers.”

“Come on, Brian… let’s dance.”

“Michael, I thought you were the one who wanted me to stay the poster child for a life of hedonism. What’s your problem tonight?”

“What, just because I didn’t want fucking terrorists to shut down a place where we’ve spent half our lives, it means I think you need to spend Justin’s first night back here getting your dick sucked in the back room?”

“If Justin doesn’t want me to go back there, Justin can ask me. It’s none of your business.” And I left. But I just went upstairs and got another drink. Michael’d killed my mood.

Three shots later I was looking down from the catwalk, watching the lights and glitter and Justin dancing with Emmett again. And Ben. And Michael. And Lindsay and Mel and Ted. Blake wasn’t there. Ted had said he’d gone skiing for the week. Good. There were enough blonds here already. Justin had his arms up in the air and he and Emmett were shimmying back to back, laughing like it was the silliest thing they’d ever done, which believe me, it wasn’t. Melanie started doing the same thing with Ted, who freaked out and backed away, and then Lindsay doubled over laughing at whatever Melanie said to him.

Michael had his arms around Ben’s neck and they were laughing too, but privately, and not really paying attention to the Justin and Emmett show. It was twenty minutes to midnight. But I’d had enough of symbolic gestures and sentiment and family to last me until next New Year’s.

I turned around to get another drink, and practically fell on top of Ted.

“Dancing with Melanie bad enough to drive you off the dance floor?” I realized too late he’d know I’d been watching. Plus I was seriously drunk and he was sober, which as I recalled was not a good combination for me and him. But he just shrugged.

“They’re having a good time. I wasn’t in the same mood.”

“Meaning they’re all drunk and you’re not. Plus the hubby’s out of town and everyone down there is dancing two by two.”

“OK, so I know you’re not jealous of Emmett and Justin, because that’s the least likely thing in the universe.” Then he shut up, even though I kept waiting for either a question or a snide comment. But he just stood there. I hated him when he was patient. I waved the bartender over for another drink and waited Ted out.

He cracked first. “Getting itchy, Brian?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Things going too well? Justin’s back, Gus is coming back, the club is back, Kinnetik’s doing great, you and Michael made up, things going too well, you need to fuck them up now so you can feel normal?” I was seriously wondering if you could sue a twelve step program.

“If I suddenly get the urge to be psychoanalyzed, trust me, it won’t be by you and it won’t be at Babylon.” I looked back down at the floor, and couldn’t see Justin anymore. Emmett was gone, too, but Mel and Lindz and Michael and Ben were still dancing. Then I saw Emmett dancing on the other side of the club, but I still didn’t see Justin’s blond head. I knew all I had to do was ask any one of the people working here and I’d probably be able to get his GSP coordinates, Ted had probably had a transponder sewn into Justin’s pants.

And then I glanced away from Ted, to my right, and Justin was leaning with his back on the railing, a bottle of water in his hand. He smiled. “I thought you might be thirsty.” And he took a big gulp of water and then put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me in and pushed it into my mouth. He kept kissing me after I swallowed it, nuzzling his hand into my hair. Then he pulled away. “Everyone misses you. Come dance with us, it’s almost midnight.”

**Justin’s POV**

I realized at some point Brian had left me and Lindsay talking in my studio. She was sitting on the floor, her legs pulled up to her chest, speculating on how much scaffolding I’d need and trying to figure out the best way to work with a piece the size I had in mind. She’d taken off her coat and scarf, but she was still playing with her knit cap. I realized how long it had been since I felt like I was with the old Lindsay instead of serious art gallery Lindsay. It reminded me of Kalli, how when she would work at Armand’s gallery she’d pull her hair back in a tight knot with just one glossy curl hanging down on her neck and wear a slinky black dress and high heels, but when she was at the studio her hair just bushed out all over the place and she wore a mini skirt over her jeans and boots.

Lindsay was wearing jeans and a sweater and her hair was curly. I remembered the first time she’d told me I had talent, and let me draw her and Gus. And how she got Brian to come to that first art show.

She stood up and sat at the table near me. “This is a beautiful studio, you’re going to love working here.”

“Yeah, it’s a big change.”

“He built this for you.” I just nodded. He did.

“I’m still so sorry for what I said on Christmas, Justin. I never, ever wanted to hurt you or Brian. And I’m so sorry that I did.” She’d already apologized, she didn’t have to do it over and over. I told her that.

She shook her head. “I know, I’ll shut up about it. But Justin, you’re absolutely, positively sure, New York doesn’t have anything for you?”

“I am absolutely, positively sure New York does have things for me.”

“Then why are you coming back here? To be with Brian? There are opportunities in New York, in the galleries there, you just can’t get in Pittsburgh.”

“I know, Lindz. I really do know. But in the end, is that about art, or is it about money? Are you telling me I can’t be an artist and be in Pittsburgh, or are you telling me I can’t be a rich and famous artist and be in Pittsburgh? Because that’s not about art, it’s about ambition.”

“But you’re acting like you have to choose between success in the art world, and Brian. Don’t you know he’d wait for you?”

I didn’t know that, or at least, not in the way she meant. And I wasn’t sure if, despite her apologies for the scene at Deb’s on Christmas, I was ready to trust her again. But she seemed genuinely concerned about me. I took a deep breath.

“Yeah, Lindz, I know he won’t go off after someone else. It’s just, I don’t want to have to do the work of cutting through the protective outer layers all over again.” I didn’t tell her the rest, that I needed him to rub my hand when it got stiff. That getting fucked three times a day kept me feeling creative. That sometimes I felt like a kid drawing pictures at school because he knew his mom was going to put them on the fridge, so I just made more and more art so Brian could look at it and tell me it was good, and make me believe it because I knew he’d never lie about it.

I’d stopped answering her and she stopped talking and looked at me until she had my attention again. “I can have the scaffolding set up while you’re in New York if you want.” She was smiling. I took the olive branch.

“That would be great, thanks.” She smiled even more, and then Melanie knocked on the door, even though it was open.

“Hey, guys, Gus wanted to see Justin’s studio, is it OK?” Gus came flying in the door and raced for where I was sitting on the table again, and I helped him climb up. It was huge, almost more like a stage than a table, and he must have thought so too because he decided to start stomping around acting out his favorite scenes from every cartoon he’d ever seen. It suddenly struck me that scaffolding and a six-year-old in the house wasn’t the greatest combination ever.

The same thought must have occurred to Lindsay because she suddenly said, “You’re going to need to get a lock on this door when the scaffolding is up.”

Melanie shook her head. “Lindz, we’re not going to be here that long. We need to get out of their hair.”

I objected.“You can stay as long as you want, Brian loves having Gus here. And you guys and JR, too, I mean.”

Lindsay laughed. “Don’t worry, Justin, I think Mel and I both know we’re here on Gus’ ticket. It’s OK.”

Melanie snorted. “Yeah, well, I might possibly have gotten my ticket revoked last night. Did Brian mention anything about hit men to you, Justin, and has anyone actually heard from Ted today?”

Lindsay burst out laughing and I felt my face getting red. My memories of last night were a little bit hazy in parts, but I did seem to remember something about Ted’s prospects for a long and healthy life not being the best, and possibly the evisceration of Melanie too. I had to stop Brian from playing those violent video games with Gus.

And then Gus decided to switch from marching around the table to flying off it, and Lindsay and I dove for him at the same time. We both missed, but it wasn’t really that high off the ground and he just jumped up laughing and went tearing off out the door and down the hall. Lindsay heaved a big sigh and took off after him.

“Brian really will miss him.” It was Mel. I looked at her in surprise.

“Yeah, but at least he’ll be here and not in Toronto. I’m really glad you guys are coming back.”

“And you’ll be here.”

I smiled. “Yup.” She looked at me for a minute with a curious expression on her face.

“I’m really happy for you, Justin. Brian’s luckier than shit you put up with him.”

There was a paint rag lying next to me and I threw it at her, and she caught it laughing. “You know what I mean. Admit it, he’s a dick sometimes.”

“Justin likes my dick.” It was Brian, standing in the doorway. I regretted having thrown away my only weapon. “Did you solve the great scaffolding crisis or do I need to get the studio remodeled again?”

**Brian’s POV**

Justin stuck his tongue out at me and then announced he was hungry. What a shock. Mel laughed and headed for the kitchen, and Justin followed her out, but I grabbed him as he went past and pulled him in for a kiss. He molded himself right up against me and I started thinking maybe I could get him to blow me before lunch. Then his stomach growled. This really wasn’t my day. He must have read my mind because he burst out laughing. He slipped his hand down and cupped it round my dick, and pulled my hand down to his ass, and whispered against my throat, “After lunch, I promise. Now it’s a major holiday, remember, you have to be sweet and sentimental to me in front of people. We have a deal.”

“Yeah, but you’re supposed to blow me whenever I want. And uh, wasn’t there something about me fucking you into the mattress? When do we get to that part?”

“Blow you whenever _I_ want, and you fuck me into the mattress after lunch and after you tell me you love me.”

“God, what are you, a lawyer?”

He stuck his tongue out again so I sucked on it. I still had my hand on his ass and he still had his on my dick, so I thought things were looking up, until his stomach growled again. People always think having a young lover is so hot, they should really walk a mile in my shoes sometime.

“OK, I get it, lunch. Then fucking.”

“Lunch, then you tell me you love me, then you fuck me.”

“Or you can just blow me.”

“If I feel like it. Depends on what you make me for lunch.”

Fortunately Lindsay had already made grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids and pasta and salad for us. It was remotely possible there were some things about her being here I was going to miss.

**Justin’s POV**

The day after New Year’s, Brian and I went to New York to get my stuff. He wanted to fly and have everything shipped, I wanted to drive my new car and bring home as much as possible ourselves. I won.

He got to pick the hotel, pack for me, and insult my driving, so he was happy.

When we got to New York, he learned the major difference between trying to get somewhere in your own car as opposed to giving an address to a driver and then just sitting back while he or she got you there. It involved maps, yelling, slammed glove compartment doors, and threats of death. Plus more yelling. By the time we got to my apartment, I was really glad we’d never gotten married because I would have so been getting a divorce. He sulked in the car while I gathered up my clothes and CDs and books. He’d told me in no uncertain terms that if so much as one cockroach egg found it’s way to the house he was going to have it fumigated with me inside it, so I left everything else.

When I got back down to the car, he was in the driver’s seat. Like I was surprised at that. I decided to pick my battles and put my bags in the back and got in the passenger side door. “Let’s go.”

He pulled out into traffic. He must have been studying the map while I was upstairs, because he didn’t ask for directions. In fact, he got us to the studio without either one of us saying another word. I really hated him.

We double-parked and went inside and I unlocked the gate to my space. Brian was right behind me, and just before I walked in he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. I looked up at him, not sure what he wanted, and he touched his forehead to mine. I smiled at him.

“What is it?” He shook his head.

“Just wondering if you were really sure about this.” Oh god, here we went again. I really wasn’t sure what was more annoying, his backseat driving or his total inability to let me decide for myself how I wanted to live my life. Although on second thought, they were the same problem.

“Are you kidding? I’ll get lots more work done in Pittsburgh. And better work.”

He wrinkled up his forehead. He shouldn’t do that, botox was expensive and if he lost his ability to lift his eyebrows he might have to speak or something.

“Yeah, I’m better living with you, otherwise it’s too much of a distraction from my art to have to go out and find sex.”

“So you just want me around for convenience.”

“You knew that, though, didn’t you?” I bit his ear lobe. “That I was only with you for the sex?”

“I actually thought it was something like that. It’s why I keep you around, so I don’t have to get up and go out, I can just roll over on top of someone.”

“Yeah. It’s worth all the other shit.”

“Other shit?” He didn’t like that.

“Yeah, the telling me how to drive and ridiculing my clothes and trying to find blowjob loopholes in our prenuptial agreement.” He swatted me on the ass and then we started packing up my stuff and taking it out to the car.

While I was stacking small canvases near the doorway, Kalli walked in. “Justin! I’m glad I was here when you came, Armand came and got your big pieces on Friday. He told me you’re going to be working in Pennsylvania now.”

“Yeah, I am. You remember Brian?”

Kalli smiled at Brian and then winked at him. “Yeah, I vaguely remember him sweeping you off in a limo last time, everybody down here talked about it for like a month.” Brian liked that. He always seemed to like my female friends who thought he was hot.

Kalli tore her eyes away from Brian and smiled back in my direction. “That’s good, Armand loves shows like ‘Emerging Artists of Wyeth Country.’ Or maybe something about the Amish, he’d love that.”

I laughed. “Well, better try selling him on something more along the lines of ‘Emerging Artists of the Dying Industrial East,’ because we live in Pittsburgh.”

Kalli helped us bring the last load of stuff out to the Range Rover. “No limo this time?”

Brian smiled, a little evil. “No, Justin wanted to drive his new car.” I blushed. Kalli looked at me with her eyebrow raised. I slammed the hatch shut at the back; we’d gotten everything in.

Brian got into the passenger seat and I turned to say goodbye to Kalli. She was still laughing. When she had me in a goodbye hug, she whispered in my ear, “Justin? I want to share with you some wisdom about the art world and talent and human nature that I’ve learned over the years.”

I pulled back and looked at her. She had a serious look on her face but her eyes were sparkling.

“Just remember, having a hot guy shoving his dick up your ass and buying you expensive things doesn’t make you less of an artist.” And she laughed again and kissed me on the cheek and went back inside.

**Brian’s POV**

Justin didn’t explain his bright red face when he got in the car, and I didn’t ask. We drove to the hotel without my having to look at the map again, and without Justin’s input on the best route. Still, I was glad to hand the keys to the parking attendant, our suitcases to the bellman, and my credit card to the front desk, just so we could get into a room without cockroaches, dust, paint fumes, and seventy-five layers of grime. I was starting to think Justin really did come home for the showers.

He was busy sorting through his suitcase looking for something, so I went and took a shower by myself. When I got out he had his sketchbook out. I was wrapped in a towel and my hair was wet. Justin seemed kind of restless.

“Something you can’t find?”

He looked over at me, and shook his head. “Nah, I found everything, just feel weird, feel like painting. I don’t suppose we can go home tonight?”

“Tell me you’re kidding. I don’t want to see that car again until tomorrow. If then.”

He laughed a little. “Yeah, I’m kidding, I’m fucking exhausted. All I want to do is get into bed and sleep until morning. If you even suggest anything more strenuous than room service I will so not blow you for a week.”

I’d planned on going out, having fond memories of our last night in New York, but at that point room service and bed sounded perfect, although the sleep part wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. We called in our dinner order and I pulled him down on the sofa with me so he could thank me for giving in so graciously. It appeared, though, that he was in a talkative mood. I thought back to the happy days of his not-talking phase. My “no regrets” policy might need some revision.

“Brian?”

I reluctantly hauled my mind back to the present and answered him. “Yeah?”

“Why are you always, always second guessing me on this shit?”

“Ummm, I think I know better than you how you should live your life? Because I’m an arrogant, controlling asshole with an ego the size of Pennsylvania?”

“Wow. That just cut out a whole big chunk of this discussion.”

“I wanted to get it over with before dinner got here.”

“But now what are we going to do?”

“Well, you could blow me like you promised.”

“When exactly did I promise that?”

“Prenuptial agreement. Page 15. I drove, you blow.”

There was really nothing he could say to that except “OK.” And even Justin can’t keep chattering with a dick in his mouth. And since room service took forever, I picked him up after and carried him to the bed and returned the favor. Conversation is really a totally over-rated form of communication.

But after dinner Justin still seemed restless, and I asked if he was sure he didn’t want to go out. “We could just go get a drink, we don’t have to go dancing or anything. You seem a little wired.”

He pointed at the minibar. “There’s like, forty different kinds of booze right here in the room, we can get totally plastered without going out the door.” Sounded good to me, so I made us both a drink. I sat down on the couch and he took his drink and sat on the ottoman. “Can I draw you?”

I shrugged. “As long as I can watch TV. Sure.” He’d been drawing me for years, I hardly noticed anymore. But there was nothing on and after surfing for a while I turned the TV off and shut my eyes. It had been a long fucking day.

It suddenly seemed too quiet to me. I didn’t want to move when Justin was drawing me, so I waited a little longer, and then I opened my eyes. He was sitting on the ottoman still, his right hand cradled in his left. His pencil was on the floor, and his sketchbook was half off his lap. His eyes were closed. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

“Justin.” He opened his eyes, and I couldn’t for even one second stand to look at the bleakness in them. I got up and went over and knelt down in front of him and wrapped myself around him. I knew it wouldn’t help. I did it for me, not him. I really am the most selfish asshole sometimes.

After a few minutes he relaxed. Maybe he was a little better. Maybe there’s just so long you can hold your muscles rigid like that. I don’t know. But I took it. And I pulled him up, gently, and brought him over to the sofa and sat down with him. He was resisting me but I ignored it. He was tense all over again. I really didn’t care.

And then we went through the same thing again, him sitting rigid and then finally softening, and I just kept my arms around him and he eventually started breathing and let his back touch my arm and then the back of the sofa, and then he put his head on my shoulder and then I relaxed too. And put my head down on his soft hair.

His right hand was lying on his thigh, and I could see it was still half-cramped up. I was afraid if I touched it he’d tense up again. I didn’t know what to do. I know people think sometimes that I’m being stubborn or cold when people need things from me, but most of the time I just feel like my mind is a blank and my instincts go quiet and the only safe thing to do is nothing. To not give the answer or read the script. And for Justin there are times I’ve tried to push past that and find the words or actions he’s asking for. But right then he wasn’t asking for anything. And I had to figure out what he needed, when he had no idea, and neither did I. Because I’m selfish and I couldn’t stand seeing him like that.

I tried to imagine what I could lose that would be like this is for him, and I couldn’t. Not even when I was sick and couldn’t fuck, not when I was totally dead in the water on a campaign, not when everything in my life was going to shit, not when I was broke and unemployed, not the night he went over and picked up those packed bags and left, not even when I heard that a bomb had gone off at Babylon and went looking for him, none of it was helping me understand what he must feel right now. Because I knew it wasn’t just a skill or even a need or desire that was being thwarted. It was more like not being able to breathe. Or maybe I really didn’t know what it was. Maybe I couldn’t.

But sitting on the outside looking in at it was killing me. And so I had to make it stop somehow. And there was nothing I could do.

So I just sat there with him and waited for inspiration. But nothing came to me.

**Justin’s POV**

I could tell how upset Brian was, and it made me feel worse. I think the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had is seeing Brian helpless. You’d think between him worrying about me and me worrying about him and the two of us worrying about the other one worrying about him, we’d be fine. But instead I sat there feeling like an idiot for letting the shit with my hand get to me, when it didn’t really matter. Even when I couldn’t draw I could paint. I could usually paint for hours at a time. And I could use my computer, too.

But I didn’t have my computer that night, and I had no way to paint. And fuck, there are just some times when I have to do something, get some kind of images out there, or I feel like I’m going to explode. And all I wanted was to sketch Brian for a little while. And I think I got like ten minutes. I can almost always get at least twice that. I never really know what sets my hand off. Maybe it was driving or moving boxes or maybe I was just fucked.

I wished Brian would rub my hand but it seemed like he was afraid to move. I didn’t want to cry so I didn’t say anything, but I kind of picked up my right hand and slid it over onto his thigh, and he grabbed it and started massaging it. He was probably relieved that he could do something. And then after a little while I really did feel better. Not just my hand, which didn’t really hurt all that much, it just stopped working. The cramping and pain were from my trying to use my muscles to do what my brain wouldn’t do, tell my hand to move and hold a pencil. If I stopped the minute things started getting fucked, there wouldn’t really be any pain and cramping. And I’d get about five minutes instead of twenty.

Brian surprised me. He smiled at me and held my hand in both of his and said, “Better?” But I could tell from his eyes his smile was bullshit.

I nodded. “Yeah, thanks. That’s the only thing that helps.”

He sighed. “What happened?”

“What always happens, after a while I just can’t control my hand anymore. Sometimes I get more time than that.” I kind of shrugged.

“What does it feel like?”

“It doesn’t hurt, really, I just can’t control it. Then I try to use my muscles and that’s when it gets all cramped up.” He knew this.

“That’s not what I meant, what I meant is, what does it feel like, for you.”

OK, that was weird. I thought Brian Kinney was asking me about my feelings. I wasn’t sure, though. That seemed kind of unlikely.

“Ummm, what do you mean?”

“I mean, what does it feel like when you’re drawing and then you can’t?”

I was about to make some kind of crack about him freaking me out, but I caught myself at the last minute. It looked like he really wanted to know, and all of a sudden I wanted him to. I thought about it a little before I thought of how to put it.

“It’s like having sex, and you’re in the middle of it, and it’s really good, and then it just stops. Like the other person just… evaporated or something. And you’re still in the middle of all the feelings and it’s all still pouring through you but there’s just nowhere for it to go. There’s no one there.”

I guess when I look back on that night in ten years, it might turn out to be the most number of words Brian ever spent asking me about my feelings. Or maybe it’ll start a new trend. But either way, he was done talking. He was holding my hand and kind of playing with my fingers, and he put one in his mouth and started licking and sucking it, and playing with it with his tongue. And it felt really good.

**Brian’s POV**

Justin was up on his knees with his hands braced on the wall behind the bed. I had my hands on his hips and I was fucking him, pulling him back down hard onto my cock as I slammed up and forward. I had started out fucking him slow but he kept asking for it harder, and he didn’t seem to want me to touch his cock. He didn’t seem to even want to come, but he was shoving himself down on me, and I gave up fighting it and wrapped my arms around his chest and thrust up into him just when he drove himself down and tightened on me, and I came, shouting his name and biting hard at his shoulder.

I was still gasping when Justin pushed off the wall and fell back onto me. I wrapped my hand around his cock and started to jerk on it. He was dripping all over my hand. I was still buried inside him, and I could feel him getting closer, and I whispered into his ear, “Justin, I wanted to come inside you, I wanted to fill you up with my come and let it run down out of you and all over your thighs and then push you down on the bed and lick it up, lick all my come off the insides of your thighs and then lick it out of your asshole, suck all my come out of you.”

And Justin just exploded all over my hand and the bed and the wall behind the bed, his ass clamping down so hard on my cock it hurt like fucking hell, and his head thrown back on my shoulder and his hands gripping my forearms so hard he was going to leave bruises. And when he was finally lying under me on the bed, his sides heaving, trying to get his breath, I whispered into his ear again. “It’s not just you who wants it, Justin.”

_Continued[here](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/9457.html)..._  


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[](http://kat-us.insanejournal.com/profile)[**kat_us**](http://kat-us.insanejournal.com/)  
2009-08-03 06:40 pm UTC ([link](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?thread=3710611&format=light#t3710611))   
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"He wrinkled up his forehead. He shouldn’t do that, botox was expensive and if he lost his ability to lift his eyebrows he might have to speak or something."  
  
Sorry, I haven't the talent to spew superlatives, but just this, dayam, that's good! 

([Reply to this](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?replyto=3710611&format=light))   
  
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[](http://specialj67.insanejournal.com/profile)[**specialj67**](http://specialj67.insanejournal.com/)  
2010-07-23 11:22 am UTC ([link](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?thread=4591507&format=light#t4591507))   
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Re-reading this for the umpteenth time, and this line still causes me to cackle:  
  
 _It suddenly struck me that, after his abdominal muscles, Ben’s total lack of a sense of humor was his finest quality_  
  
Possibly one of the most Brian-esque lines, something I could have seen him saying in the show. 

([Reply to this](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?replyto=4591507&format=light))   
  
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[](http://mysid.insanejournal.com/profile)[**mysid**](http://mysid.insanejournal.com/)  
2010-07-24 04:18 am UTC ([link](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?thread=4594067&format=light#t4594067))   
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Well, if we're all going to post which line(s) we adore after rereading this umpteen times, mine has to be Justin's comparison of his hand giving out on him to having sex with a partner who disappears. Not only does it truly get across the bleakness of how it makes him feel, but having it being an art analogy is perfect for Justin. 

([Reply to this](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?replyto=4594067&format=light))   
  
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[](http://karen-jk.insanejournal.com/profile)[**karen_jk**](http://karen-jk.insanejournal.com/)  
2011-03-02 01:06 am UTC ([link](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?thread=4924819&format=light#t4924819))   
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Reading your fanfic is spoiling me for most other writers. 'Cause it's that good. 

([Reply to this](http://xie-xie-xie.insanejournal.com/8083.html?replyto=4924819&format=light))   
  
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	3. Decisions, Chapter 3

  
  
  
  
**  
****Decisions, Chapter 3**  
By Xie

 _"Ever notice that ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision?_ ” - Marilyn Monroe

**Justin’s POV**

I heard my cell phone ringing. It stopped and rolled to voice mail.

A minute later it rang again. I let it roll to voice mail again.

The third time I opened one eye just long enough to make sure I could find the phone, and picked it up without looking at the caller ID, which would have meant opening my eye again. “Hello.”

“Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!”

OK, I was definitely sleep deprived but I was pretty sure that wasn’t English or any other language I recognized.

“Justin?” Now, THAT I recognized.

“Daph?”

“Hi!!! That was ‘Happy New Year’ in Hawaiian!” As if that was going to make it all clear.

“Justin?”

“Daph?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Daphne, it’s ummmmm… still dark.” I pulled the cell back and looked at the time display. “Daph! It’s fucking 4 AM!”

“Oh my god, I’m sorry! I forgot the time difference. I’m still in Hawaii.” She’d gone to Hawaii for Christmas with some friends from school.

Brian grumbled from the other side of the bed, “What the fuck?”

“It’s Daph. Go back to sleep.” I got out of bed and went into the bathroom.

“Who was that, was that Brian?” She sounded excessively happy.

“Yeah. Daph, are you drunk?”

She giggled. “Well duh! Would I have forgotten the time difference if I wasn’t a little drunk? So that was really Brian?”

“No, some nameless sex partner who happened to know who Daph is. Of COURSE it’s Brian.” And I was the blond one in this conversation.

“So, where are you?”

“We’re in New York.”

“He’s visiting you?”

“Not exactly. We’re here picking up my stuff.” I closed the lid of the toilet and sat down on it. My ass was freezing. “Ummm, Daph? Can we catch up on all this tomorrow? When it’s light out and my brain is awake?”

“You’re MOVING BACK?”

I sighed. “Yeah.” Brian threw open the door and walked up to the toilet, and then stopped, totally bewildered to find me sitting on it. I got up and then at the last minute, put the lid up for him. He didn’t seem to have his eyes open.

I went back to the bedroom and climbed into the bed and shoved my cold feet over into Brian’s warm spot. Then I scooted my whole body over onto it. “OK, he’s taking a piss. We have one minute. Yes, I’m moving back. Everything’s great. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? While Brian is trying on clothes.” Which should take the better part of the next two days, because his supply of black pants and sleeveless shirts that only six people on the East Coast were capable of differentiating from each other was running low.

I turned the phone off and put it on the bedside table just as Brian came back to bed. His hair was sticking up all over the place, which always made me horny. That and the fact that he was naked and that Brian mostly always made me horny. He looked at me in confusion. “You’re on the wrong side.”

“Yours was warmer.” I pushed back the cover and patted the bed. He climbed in and I pulled the blankets over us both and wrapped him in my arms and legs. I don’t think he ever really woke up.

**Brian’s POV**

When I woke up the next day, I was half on top of Justin and half on the mattress. He was still sound asleep. I lay there looking at him sleep for a few minutes, willing thoughts of strong dark coffee into his head. He didn’t open his eyes. So I touched his eyelashes with my fingertip, and saw his lips move just the tiniest bit. I ran my finger down his face and traced his lips, first his upper lip, then back and forth over his lower lip, barely touching it. His lips had opened at the first touch of my finger, and then his eyes. I smiled at him and he smiled back, and I kissed him.

“You know,” I said, using my most persuasive voice, “I’ll bet if I order breakfast now, it wouldn’t come until you’d had time to blow me.”

He laughed. “I want to go out to breakfast.”

“I bet if I made a reservation now, before they could seat us, you’d have time to blow me.”

He licked his lips. I smiled. He looked at the phone. “OK, make the reservation. You’re just wasting time.”

Justin took me to a place he liked to go in the Village, a place that definitely didn’t require reservations, and I drank coffee and picked at a bagel while he ate eggs and smoked salmon. We were supposed to stay for two more days, but I guess I’d caught some of his restlessness from the night before. I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go back today.”

He sat back, but left me holding his hand. “I have to go see Armand, and I’m not sure he’s around today.”

“OK, we can do that. If you can see him, let’s go home today.”

“I thought you wanted to go clothes shopping.”

I shrugged.

It was late afternoon by the time we stopped at the gallery and checked out of the hotel. Justin wanted to drive home, but about halfway there he was yawning. Not wanting to die in a pathetic conflagration on the turnpike, I took over. He was curled up and sound asleep a few minutes later, and never woke up even when I stopped for gas, or when I pulled into the garage at home.

I sat there for a little while, looking at him. His hair was getting kind of shaggy again, he’d probably say he needed to get it cut. He talked about getting it cut more than he actually did, though. I liked having a little something to grab, but it was his hair. I reached across to wake him up, and suddenly realized I was afraid. Afraid of him doing something stupid, of making a mistake he couldn’t fix, of doing the wrong thing with his life. And I couldn’t even make my hand touch his shoulder. I just sat there, frozen. And then I rested my forehead on the steering wheel of the car I bought him, sitting in the garage of the house I bought him, and wondered what the fuck I’d thought I was doing.

“Brian?” I looked over and he’d woken up, and probably wondered what we were doing just sitting there. And when I looked at him, his face lit up with that fucking smile of his, and he said, “What are you doing? C’mon, let’s bring this shit in.” As if he hadn’t been practically snoring five minutes ago.

When we went inside, the first place Justin went was his studio, carrying a box of painting supplies. I followed him in with another one of his boxes, and found him standing at the foot of a tall scaffold in front of a gigantic canvas on the biggest studio wall. He’d set his box down on the table and looked like he was about to climb up. I collared him and said, “In the morning, Spiderman. You were too tired to keep your eyes open, you can’t climb on that thing now.”

He gave me a look that, if translated from the Justin, would have been something like, “Excuse me? I’m almost 23 years old and have been living on my own in the most dangerous city in America for the last eight months, who are you telling what to do?”

Fortunately he didn’t say it out loud, so I just ignored it and dragged him upstairs.

**Justin’s POV**

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with Brian in the car. He’d had his head down on the steering wheel and when he looked at me, his eyes looked kind of worried or scared. But I’ve learned those are the worst times of all to try to get him to talk. He always reacts like he’s being cornered.

One of the things I figured out during my “no talking about stuff” phase was that Brian does actually have a deep need to discuss things. He just likes to do it in single sentences spaced out over a number of different conversations, interspersed with a lot of non-verbal communication like sulking and fucking and buying shit.

We brought a few boxes into the studio, but before I could put anything away or check out my new scaffolding, he somehow got me upstairs and naked in the bedroom before I realized it. He’s good at that. And I found a really good way to get that sad scared look out of his eyes. That’s something I’m good at.

He was running his hands all over me slowly, down my back and over my ass and then up my sides. I started to touch him, gently, brushing my hands and my mouth over his chest and then dropping down to sit on the bed and pressing my lips into his stomach. He brought his hands up behind my head and pulled me in tight, fisting my hair and bending his knees just a little, angling his cock up towards my mouth.

I ignored him and kept pressing kisses into his belly and then down to the soft skin inside his thighs. I slid my hands around to his ass and pulled him in closer, breathing in the smell from his cock and his pubes and his balls, burying my face in it. He pulled away from me and pushed me back, and I let him fall on top of me, our feet still on the floor. He crawled up between my legs, his knees moving me backwards, until I was lying stretched out under him. He kept moving up over me, holding his weight on his arms, every muscle standing out. He was starting to glisten with sweat. I lunged forward and licked at his arms, tracing the lines of his muscles with my tongue, trying to sit up and get closer to him.

Brian used his head to butt me back down to the bed, and then kissed me while he slowly let his groin drop down onto me. His hard cock touched mine, but just barely, and he brushed it back and forth against me. I tried to lift up and press against him hard, but he bent his knees a little and pulled back, so I couldn’t get any contact.

I lay back down, frustrated, and he pushed himself off me and sat back on his heels, still kneeling between my spread legs. He took his cock in his hand and suddenly grinned at me. I smiled back, a little uncertain. He bit his lip and started to trace his cock over my bare skin, leaving little tracks of precum on me, a little bit on my stomach and across my pubes, then a glistening line down my cock, which made me shudder and try to press up to him again. But he just kept moving, dragging the head of his cock on me, down onto the skin of my inner thighs, his hand moving slowly on himself while he milked little bits of wetness onto me, marking me with them. Everywhere he touched me and wet me tingled, and the skin of his cock was burning straight through me. I was starting to feel kind of crazy and confined. I wanted him to fuck me.

“Put your knees up.” His voice sounded detached and breathless at the same time. I lifted my knees and spread my legs wider, tucking my heels almost all the way under my hips. He shifted himself forward and let his weight drop to one arm, and started dragging his cock over me again, first along my cock, which jerked up towards him even though I kept my hips on the mattress this time. Then back through my pubes and down each thigh, down the little crease where my thigh met my groin, back and forth across my balls. I was shivering and my hips kept moving and shifting closer to him.

His eyes were following the movement of his cock, and his lips were open, his tongue just barely showing. He was totally lost in what he was doing, and I fought the urge to cover my eyes with my arms, because his face was so beautiful like this, he seemed so focused and intent on touching me and marking me, his hand moving on his cock and bringing each bit of moisture out onto the head and then onto me.

He shifted the head of his cock under my balls, pressing it into the space behind them, pressing down hard. And now I had to lift up, and groan, I couldn’t help it, his cock was pushing into me and there was no way not to try to meet that feeling, that pressure and wetness. The heat of his skin on my skin. But he pulled back, and let go of his cock, and settled back onto his heels, and put his hands on the sides of my hips and said, “Roll over, Justin.” And I did, without thinking, without hesitation.

And felt him start the same mesmerizing tracing again, his cock passing over my skin, him lifting himself over me and touching it to the small of my back, the backs of my thighs, the crack of my ass, back to that spot behind my balls, probing at it, letting his cock move past my hole, making me rise up on my knees and grab the sheets in my hands and clench my jaw and moan. He did it again, moving his bare cock down the crack of my ass and then sliding it past my opening and down the insides of my thighs again. I didn’t have one coherent thought in my head at that point, and I couldn’t have gotten a word out if I’d thought of one to say.

His hands were on my hips again, and this time he moved me to my side, my back to him, without saying a word. I felt languid and frantic all at once, not sure whether to twist around and push him over and throw myself on top of him, or to beg him to fuck me, or to just let his hands move me where he wanted me. I felt like I could have done any of those things, or all of them, but he was suddenly curving himself behind me, holding my legs together. “Cross your ankles,” he whispered, and I did, not sure why. I heard him pop the lid on the lube, and expected to feel his finger in my ass, but instead he pushed his hand in between my thighs, slippery and wet, and then pulled it back out.

Brian had his leg over mine, keeping me from untangling my ankles or spreading my legs. His lubed hand was on his cock, and I felt a jolt of excitement so hard it almost hurt, and my ass clenched tight. Then I felt his cock pressing against the backs of my thighs, right below my ass crack. And he pushed, not up between my cheeks but down between my thighs, sliding through the lube and the heat, pushing on the back of my balls and my perineum, prodding at me, then pulling back and sliding in again, back and forth, his hand coming forward and grabbing my cock. The base of his cock was grinding down onto my hole with every thrust, and I bent at the waist and pushed back into it.

He was rocking his hips against my ass, his cock sliding in and out between my thighs, while the motion pushed my cock forward into his lubed fist, and then back as he pulled back. Every time I felt his cock start sliding in again, I tried to angle myself so it would hit that spot behind my balls, but I couldn’t open my legs. His leg was holding me down, my thighs making a tight tunnel for him to fuck. I made it tighter, as tight as I could, and he groaned in my ear, and his hand started moving faster on me while he pumped harder. I knew he was going to come, and I suddenly realized I was going to feel it shooting onto my skin, soaking my balls, and just the thought of it made my cock get painfully, achingly hard in Brian’s slick hand.

And then he went rigid behind me, and his breath caught, and I felt it, that hot burning flood all over my balls and my thighs, running down my legs and onto my cock and onto Brian’s fist. And then I started to come, too, the sensation of heat and wetness pushing me over the edge, making me arch my back and twist my legs away from his, spreading them and pushing into him and letting wave after wave of heat pour out of me and through me.

I rolled over onto my back, towards him, and Brian pressed his face down my chest and onto my stomach, licking at the come that was everywhere. He licked my neck and chest and belly, and pushed his face into all the wetness, his come and mine mixed together, burying himself in it. He tongue was all over me, on my cock and then on my balls, lapping at them, dipping into the little crease between my thighs and groin. He nuzzled himself into the insides of my thighs, and he had come on his face and in his hair, and I sat up suddenly and curved myself down to him, licking at his face and kissing him frantically.

He followed me up and then pushed me down, lying on top of me, kissing me, our tongues tangled up, tasting each other on our mouths and faces, our bodies sticky and hot and wet, my thighs slippery with lube and his spit.

I pushed him over onto his side, and grabbed the sides of his face with both hands, and kissed him, my mouth open. “Brian.”

He smiled gently at me, with that clear happy look in his eyes I pretty much only saw right after we fucked. “Brian.”

He touched his forehead to mine and kissed me softly on my lips. “Mmmm.”

“Brian, please, can’t we…”

He sighed. “Can’t we what?” Like he didn’t know exactly what I was talking about.

I felt my face getting red, and I hid it against his neck. “I want you to come inside me.” I whispered it.

He didn’t say anything right away, just stroked my hair and held me. And then he sighed again. “Justin.” He was staring straight up at the ceiling.

“Why can’t we?”

“You know why.”

He was still holding me, but he wasn’t playing with my hair anymore. I pulled away and leaned up on my right elbow and looked at him, with my other hand on his chest. I looked right at him, even though he kept his eyes turned a little away from me.

“But, other guys in open relationships, who are both negative, they have unprotected sex with each other but protected sex with other guys. Why can’t we do that?”

“No.”

I didn’t say anything, just put my head back down on his shoulder. “No” didn’t leave a heck of a lot of room for discussion.

Brian hadn’t moved, and I wasn’t expecting him to say anything else, but he did, and his voice was really quiet. “You want my come in your ass after ‘all the places my dick has been,’ I think those were your words?”

I tensed up. I wasn’t really sure if this was the Brian Kinney Tough Love Safe Sex lecture or he was genuinely angry at me about my reaction to the visit from the syphilis fairy last year. We were probably going to be a hundred and ten before we finished having all the conversations we needed to have about shit that happened in the past. Every one of them two sentences at a time.

I just closed my eyes. After a while his hand went back to stroking my hair. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it.

**Brian’s POV**

I lay there holding Justin for a while, and when he was asleep, I slid away from him and went downstairs. Melanie was there, watching television, a glass on the table in front of her, an open bottle on the bar. I could almost learn to like Mel if she’d just not talk.

“I can go if you want.” She started to get up.

I shrugged. “As long as you’re not watching some dipshit chick flick, I don’t care.”

“Do I look like someone who watches dipshit chick flicks, Mr. ‘I’m Only Going to See X-Men 3 Because Michael Wants To’?”

I ignored her and sat down at the computer and read my email.

“We found a place to rent, did Lindsay tell you?”

That was news. I’d pretty much gotten Justin into the bedroom without even getting everything out of the car. “No.”

“Yeah, a house around the corner from Michael and Ben’s.”

I laughed. “That is so fucking perfect. The two little Stepford families.”

It was her turn to shrug. “It’s a good situation for us, for the kids.” Sometimes she was too easy, but other times she just refused to take the bait. I never could quite figure Mel out.

“Anyway, I start my new job next week, so we’re going to try to get moved in over the next few days. Lindsay’s going up to Toronto day after tomorrow to get everything packed.” It had surprised me how hard it was to get them to agree to let me pay for the move.

“Another tragic mistake rectified.”

That pissed her off. “Somebody fucking blew up a bomb in our faces, Brian. Lindsay was scared. I was scared. Fuck, Brian, you were scared. We all do weird shit when we’re scared.”

“I didn’t flee the fucking country.”

“No, you actually did a smart thing for a change. You went and found something that mattered to you before you lost it for good.”

I got up abruptly and went to the bar. I poured the Jack Daniels into a glass and swallowed it down.

“And then I lost it anyway.” I had actually not meant to say that. Maybe I only thought it.

Melanie didn’t say anything right away. I poured another drink.

“You didn’t lose him. He’s upstairs asleep in your bed.”

“Yeah.” I sounded bitter. “Everything’s perfect now. We’re going to live happily ever after, until he figures out how much of his life he’s giving up. Wasn’t that the song you and Lindsay were singing last year?”

“Justin isn’t a kid with a crush. He’s a grown man and it’s up to him to decide how he wants to live his life. For some incomprehensible reason, he wants to live it with you. As long as that’s fine with you, why is the rest of it your business at all?”

“Who says it’s fine with me?”

Melanie burst out laughing. “Oh, Jesus, Brian, get a fucking grip. Have you looked in the mirror lately? That weird muscle spasm you’ve been having in the lower half of your face? It’s called SMILING. People do it when they’re happy. When things in their life are going how they want them to go.”

I didn’t say anything, just swallowed what was left in my glass. I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch, but I didn’t think it was a smile.

Mel went back to her movie. And in a little while, I went back upstairs to Justin.

**Justin’s POV**

After Brian left in the morning, I worked in my studio until my hand started fucking up, and then went out to the media room and checked my email.

There was one from Michael, wondering about doing another issue of Rage. I had mixed feelings about it. Even though I could do a lot of the drawing on my computer, it took its toll on my hand. But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Rage, and I knew Michael needed the money.

Technically I needed the money too, which was another conversation I was going to have to have with Brian, the one where we figure out how a 22-year-old starving painter/comic book artist lives with a businessman worth millions without feeling like a mistress or playing some stupid game like “Just let me pay half the bills honey,” when half the monthly bills probably exceeded his annual income. Yeah, I was really looking forward to that. I’d rather stick to arguing over whether or not I could have full fat yogurt in the refrigerator.

Daphne had written she was home, so I called her to see if she wanted to get together. She wanted to come see the house. She said she’d bring food. That’s what best friends are for.

Her initial impression of the place was mostly conveyed by a series of breathless “oh my gods” while I showed her the house, the pool, and as much of the land as we were going to want to see in January. She actually got in our shower. “Jesus, this is bigger than your bedroom in New York.”

When we went down to the studio, she didn’t say anything at first, just looked around with wide eyes.

“God, Justin, this is amazing. I mean, I thought the loft was cool, but this…”

I shrugged. “It’s all right.”

She hit me. I laughed.

We went into the media room and she sighed and squealed again over the sound system. While I put on some CDs, she threw herself backwards on the sofa and smiled at me happily.

“Well, you’ve got everything now. Great work, great sex, great house. And you have a cute butt. It’s like, the perfect life.”

“Yeah, and he still seems to think I’m making some huge sacrifice to be here.”

“He has low self-esteem.” Daphne was getting her masters in public health at Pitt, where she clearly was taking way too many psych classes.

“Brian has low self esteem like Brian has a small dick.”

“He does, Justin! He doesn’t think he deserves you.”

“He doesn’t deserve me.”

“I’m serious.”

I didn’t answer her. I knew what she was saying, even though she was wrong. Brian didn’t have low self-esteem. Brian knew perfectly well that he was hot, smart, successful, and could make me scream in bed. It was just that he didn’t seem to think any of that meant he could also be happy.

“Justin? Are things OK? You sounded really happy, but now I don’t know. Are you freaking out about something?”

I went and sat down in one of the chairs by the fireplace. “I think he’s thinking about the monogamy thing again.” I wasn’t really sure what Brian was thinking, but I had a feeling that was it.

“Thinking about it yes, or thinking about it no?”

“Thinking about it yes.”

“Jesus. Why?”

“Ummm, because I keep begging him to shove his dick up my ass without a condom?”

Daphne blushed. It took a lot to get that to happen, I was glad to see I wasn’t losing my touch. “JUSTIN!!!!!! I’m sure he wouldn’t be monogamous just to fuck you raw.”

“No, I think he wants to do it to make me happy.” I realized I didn’t sound glad about that. “In fact, I think he IS doing it, he just hasn’t admitted it yet.” I hadn’t actually admitted that to myself yet either. Damn, Daph was good.

“Why does that freak you out? He did it before.” Daphne always got all romantic over our wedding that wasn’t.

“Yeah, and he turned into some kind of weird pod version of Brian. I don’t think monogamy is good for him.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. “Isn’t that kind of up to him, though, Justin? If that’s what he wants?”

I got up and flopped down on my stomach on the rug in front of the fireplace. “Well, does he want it, or is he doing it for me?”

“Are you thinking he won’t be able to do it, that he’ll cheat on you?” She sounded doubtful.

I just groaned. “Fuck no. What I’m afraid is that if he promised me he’d fuck only me, and I was crushed in some horrible industrial accident, and before I died I didn’t manage to give him permission to have sex with someone else, he’d never fuck again if he lived to be a hundred.” That was the whole problem.

She didn’t answer and I finally looked up at her. She had this weird expression on her face, kind of like pity. “You’re both freaks, you know that? Total freaks.”

“I know. We are.”

She’d brought pizza and beer and an hour later we were happily stuffing our faces in front of the TV. We were also maybe a little bit stoned, having raided Brian’s stash. But we’d smoked it out by the pool so Lindsay and Mel wouldn’t come in and freak out about it.

“Well, are the kiddies having fun tonight?” It was Brian, standing in the door looking as fucking hot at the end of a long, hard day as he’d looked walking out that morning. Nobody looked as good in a suit as Brian.

He smiled at Daphne. He’d always liked her, partly because she was so loyal to me but mostly because she thought he was six kinds of hotness and didn’t hide it. Brian appreciated loyalty and lust in a person.

“I’m guessing the big greasy pizza box on the kitchen counter is dinner?”

Daphne giggled. “Yeah, Brian, just gnaw on the cardboard, we know you never eat anything with calories anyway.”

“I think that there are enough calories from the grease alone to get me through to morning, but I had planned on something a little more nutritious than that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Daph got you a salad, it’s in the fridge, and there’s cold pizza there too, for later when you’re sneaking a big glob of congealed cheese that you think I won’t notice.”

Brian went upstairs to change, and Daph and I went into the kitchen to get some more beer. When Brian came down, I’d put his chicken Ceasar on a plate and set a beer next to it, and he smiled a little. We all sat down while he ate. He didn’t make any jokes about me being a good little wife, either because he was on his best behavior in front of Daphne or because he intended to torment me later.

“So, Brian, Justin’s studio is amazing. I love it. And all he has to do for it is takeout salad and some cold pizza?”

“No, he has to put out, too.”

“Oh yeah, like he ever needed any extra incentive to put out.”

“Some things are their own reward,” Brian agreed. Daphne giggled.

I tried to decide which one of them I hated more. “You know, Brian, the chances of my putting out tonight just got dramatically lower.”

He laughed and took a swallow of his beer. “Don’t worry, Daphne. He talks tough, but that’s all it is, talk.”

I decided to change the subject. “So, did you figure out your internship yet?” Brian kind of smirked at me when I said that. Me being an expert on internships.

Daphne brightened up. “Yeah, I’m doing it at this clinic downtown that does programs for the management of chronic pain for low income people, it’s going to be great. They have pharmacists and even an acupuncture clinic.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, that’s what someone with constant pain needs, to be stuck with needles.”

She just shrugged. “It helps. I’ve had it.”

I stared at her. “For what?”

“Carpal tunnel.” Daphne had complained about that all last year, while she was finishing up her undergrad degree.

“Now you’re sounding like Ben.”

Brian was just listening, not even really eating his salad. He took a swallow of beer.

Daphne persisted. “You should try it. For your hand.”

I started rubbing my right hand with my left before I realized I was doing it. Then I stopped. “My hand’s fine.” Brian snorted and got up and put his plate in the sink. He’d hardly eaten, but he usually didn’t eat much at night.

Daphne left after we ate, and I went looking for Brian. He was on the sofa with the remote in his hand, but the TV was off. I slid over the back and landed in his lap. I got my arms around his neck and sighed dramatically.

“Now would be a good time.”

“Good time for what?”

“That thing you don’t need a bomb to say.”

“Oh, that.” But his lips twitched in a promising way.

“You can ask me to marry you, but you still have an anxiety attack saying you love me?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then it hit me.

“Was I not supposed to bring up you asking me to marry you?”

“That didn’t turn out so good, I decided we should try something different this time.”

Even though that was totally fucked up, I had to laugh. “Sex is always good.”

He laughed and got his hands into my hair and kissed my jaw. “It is.”

“So, speaking of sex and trying something different, any chance we could renegotiate the prenuptial agreement to include not fucking other guys and sex without condoms?” I seriously had no idea those words were going to come out of my mouth. I froze on his lap, and he kind of froze up too. But when he answered, his tone was light.

“I was hoping we could get a few other clauses in there.”

I laughed, even if it was a little nervous. “Let me guess, you’ve never liked that blowjob language.”

“And I was thinking something about you not driving within a fifteen mile radius of a major metropolitan center.”

“OK, so this is your idea of how to get me to negotiate? Insulting my driving?”

Brian sighed and buried his face in my shoulder. I knew this had been too easy.

“Justin. Seriously. Is that what you want?” His voice was muffled.

“Don’t do what I want.”

“Jesus, can I get that in writing?”

“I mean it, Brian. This is where it all got fucked up before. I want you to do what you want, not what I want.”

“Is that what happened last time?”

“That and you wouldn’t fuck me.”

He lifted up his face and looked at me. “When the hell wouldn’t I fuck you?”

“The night you wanted to just CUDDLE.” The only time in the history of the known universe Brian Kinney had turned down a blowjob.

He put his face back onto my shoulder. “That might possibly have been more metaphorical than literal.”

It took me a minute to figure out what he meant by that.

“You ASSHOLE! You did that on purpose!”

I jumped up and started pacing around the room. I couldn’t believe he did that.

“Did what on purpose?” He was playing innocent.

“You fucking pretended not to want to fuck so I’d talk about that FUCKING Art Forum article. You are such an asshole.” I was seriously pissed.

Brian sat up. “Yeah, so you believed it. You believed that asking you to marry me made my dick soft. Even though the morning after you said yes I fucked you on every horizontal and vertical surface in the loft, and if there were any diagonal surfaces I’d have fucked you on those too. Maybe I’m not the only one who got his brain fucked up by that bomb.”

I sat down on one of the chairs and looked at him.

“Brian. I’m not kidding. This has to stop, you trying to manipulate me.”

“What am I supposed to do when you’re being a complete twat?”

“You’re an articulate guy and I have highly advanced verbal skills. If you think I should do something, you need to persuade me, not manipulate me.”

He ran a hand through his hair. I saw him look over towards the bar, but he stayed where he was. I got up and went back over and sat next to him. He didn’t move, but he didn’t pull away when I put my hand on his thigh.

“OK, enough talking for one night. Your head’s going to explode.”

He groaned. “We talked about our relationship. Now you’re going to want to fuck me.”

“Well, if you say you love me, then you get to fuck me instead.”

“I fucking love you.” And he lunged at me, pushing me down onto the sofa and kissing me hard on my mouth. When he pulled away, I just licked my lips and tried to remember what we’d been talking about.

**Brian’s POV**

When I got to work the next morning, I was cc’d on an email from Michael asking me, Ted, and Emmett to meet him at Woody’s after work. I groaned. Michael was feeling sentimental and wanted to get the boys together again.

Ted walked in after knocking on the open door. I hated it when he did that. If you’re going to fucking walk in, walk in. If you’re going to knock, wait to be invited. Pick one. “Did you see this email from Michael?”

“I just got it.”

“Well, are you going?”

“What are you, my fucking social secretary?”

“I’ll take that as a yes?” I glared at him and he left, laughing. Never hire friends.

Cynthia came in as I sucked down a mouthful of coffee. She was lugging a huge stack of papers, and I wondered again why I thought it was a good idea to open my own company. Oh yeah: Millions of dollars.

“This is the documentation for the meeting this morning. You can go through it all, or you can just fake it like you usually do.” Fortunately I was brilliant that way.

The meeting was the usual waste of time, but I had lunch with a prospective client who’d flown in from Cleveland, and was in a fairly good mood by the time I got to Woody’s. I got a drink and was shooting pool when a guy I’d seen around gave me an unmistakable look when he walked past me. I ignored him.

“You’re doing it, aren’t you?” It was Ted, rising up from out of nowhere like a swamp creature in the fog. I had no fucking idea what he was talking about.

“Doing what?” I lined up my next shot.

“That fucking Justin without a condom thing that is a word very closely related to MONOTONY.”

I considered my next shot carefully. “Explain to me in what wild perverse alternative universe this is your business?”

“The universe where you brought it up first?”

I walked over to the other side of the table and picked up my glass. “It’s remotely possible that I’m thinking about it.”

“Does Justin know you’re thinking about it?”

I took my shot and sank it. I nodded. Fuck him if he missed it.

He didn’t. “Jesus.”

I sank another shot. “Just keep it to yourself, Theodore.”

“You haven’t told Michael?” This time I missed my shot and waved to Ted to take his turn.

“No. Not going to.” This was the last thing I’d tell Michael.

Ted took his shot and somehow sunk a ball. It was even his own ball. He started to line up his next shot, and I swallowed the last of my drink. He sunk another ball. I wondered if the table was rigged somehow. He missed the next one though, so it must have just been some kind of bizarre fluke.

“Why aren’t you telling him?”

I sunk a ball. “Let’s see. It’s a three letter word beginning with ‘B.’ See if you can guess.”

“Ben?”

“I knew that you could.” I looked at Ted then instead of taking my shot. “Theodore. Do. Not. Discuss. This. With. Michael. I might tell him, but I’ll tell him. Not you. Is there any part of this that you don’t understand?”

“Does this fall under the pain of death clause in my contract?”

“The most painful of pain of death clauses imaginable. It won’t be fast and it won’t be pretty.”

“Everything can be pretty if you just want it to be.” Emmett swooped down on us. I couldn’t figure out how someone who wore clothes exclusively chosen from my personal designer reject pile came fucking close to dressing as well as I did. I kind of missed Emmett’s disco trash days. “What’s not pretty?”

“Brian’s just going over some of the terms of my employment contract.”

“Hold out for the sauna in your private bathroom, Teddy. He can afford it.”

“Hey guys!”

It was Michael. “Well, if it’s not the hostess of our little soiree.” I handed the pool cue to Emmett and steered Michael over to the bar. “Double Chivas on the rocks for me, and whatever Mikey wants.”

He got a beer. Naturally. I was surprised he hadn’t switched to diet Coke like Ted. Of course, we still sold the hard stuff hand over fist at Babylon every night, a thought that cheered me up enough to buy a third Chivas.

And then I remembered Emmett hadn’t joined the ranks of non-fucking, non-drinking, non-drug-doing fags yet, and would probably have some E. Which seemed like a very good idea if I was going to be spending the evening with my oldest friends and not having sex with strangers in the bathroom.

He slipped it to me when Michael and Ted were arguing over the name of a song that was playing, and I let it dissolve a little and then knocked back a little Chivas. And then thought that if Justin were there, he’d make me drink some water. Christ, the little fucker was there even when he wasn’t there.

Emmett had obviously taken mind-reading lessons. “Where’s Justin tonight?”

I took Emmett’s water out of his hand and drank some before handing it back. “I have no idea, amazingly, we don’t swap schedules every morning before going out.” Besides, Justin had been sound asleep with his head shoved under the pillow when I left that morning. For all I knew, he still was.

“Spill it, Emmy Lou. I can see you’re itching to ask me something.”

“Are the Kinney-Taylor nuptials back on?”

“If they ever are, I promise, you’ll be the first wedding planner we contact. But I wouldn’t worry about picking Saturdays in June just yet.”

Ted looked like he’d swallowed something the wrong way, but he kept his mouth shut for once. I didn’t remember if I’d sworn him to general secrecy or just told him not to tell Michael. You really had to be as specific as possible when threatening Theodore.

“Kinney-Taylor nuptials?” It was Michael. “Should I get my best man suit dry-cleaned?”

“Don’t do anything drastic on my account. If Justin and I decide to tie the knot, we’ll probably elope to Massachusetts like all good little faggots and lezzies.”

“You can’t get married in Massachusetts unless you live there. Even though the 14th Amendment specifically states…”

“Jesus fucking christ, Michael. You gave a little sperm to Melanie and now you’re a lawyer? Your poor kid. She’s doomed.”

Since bringing up JR typically derailed Michael from any subject he was otherwise discussing, I figured we’d now get treated to a report on the most perfect child ever born, so I went and got another drink. When I got back, he was happily passing pictures around to Ted and Emmett, who pretended to be enthralled. Since the real thing was still gracing one of my guest rooms, and I heard her gurgling on the baby monitor in the kitchen every morning while I drank my coffee, I ignored the pictures.

By the end of the evening I was pretty drunk and thought about calling Justin to come get me, but that seemed lesbianic so I just got out my cell to call the car service. One of the many inconveniences of moving to the middle of nowhere. If I’d actually moved. One more of the things I was trying not to think about unless forced to.

Michael snapped my phone shut. “I can drive you, Brian.”

“It’s too far.”

“It’ll be OK. C’mon. I’ll bring your car by Kinnetik tomorrow night and you or Ted can drive me home.”

“Yeah, Ted or I can transport you back out to the Stepford village. With the wife and kiddies and the lesbian wives and kiddies.” But I meant all that in a good way.

We were standing outside of Woody’s and I was watching the lights on all the passing cars get all streaky in the rain. Michael put his hand on my arm. “Brian? Where’s the car?”

I thought about that for a minute. I pointed. “I think it’s there, but if not, it’s somewhere else.” And then I laughed and put my hands on Michael’s shoulders. “C’mon, Mikey, let’s play find the car.”

“Brian, your Corvette needs you. Try to focus.”

There were advantages to getting shit-faced with someone who really knew what mattered. “It’s in front of the bath and body shop.”

When we got to the house, Michael walked me to the front door and took my keys away and opened it up. Justin had left the porch light on, and a few lights downstairs, but he was either in his studio or in bed, because the other rooms were dark. Michael started to head for the stairs but I steered us over to the media room. TV and another drink sounded good.

“Wanna watch a movie? I have Spiderman.”

Michael sighed and guided me to the sofa. I fell down on it and bounced. He stood looking down at me. “Should I get Justin to put you to bed?”

I shook my head. “No, Justin won’t do it. He says I have to sleep where I fall. It’s tough love.” I thought that sounded wrong so I clarified. “He says he doesn’t want to be an enabler.” My little walking, talking, breathing, fucking public service announcement.

Michael snorted. “Justin’s not entirely out of his mind on that, but some habits are harder to break than others.” It occurred to me later he didn’t mean my getting wasted, but his bringing me home.

I convinced Michael to put on the Spiderman DVD, and then a little while later I speculated on the possibility he could go get us some food in the kitchen.

“You have food in your kitchen?”

“Yes. Justin lives here now. And Mel and Lindsay and the kids are here. The kitchen is completely stuffed with food. There’s even…” I lowered my voice … “Cap'n Crunch.”

When Mikey came back with food, Justin was with him. He didn’t seem at all pissed, and even sat down with us and ate popcorn and argued with Michael about the movie. I think I fell asleep, because when I woke up, everything was really quiet. I sat up and saw them standing in the doorway talking in low voices. I listened but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Hey.” They turned around and looked at me.

Michael smiled. “I’m heading out, Brian, I’ll come by Kinnetik with the car tomorrow, I’ll call you before I come.”

I got up and gave him a big hug, and he patted my back and then hugged Justin and grabbed his jacket and left.

Justin slipped his arm around me. “Want to go upstairs?”

“I thought I had to sleep where I fell?” It was one of the things he’d told me once, that he wouldn’t be like Michael.

He shrugged. “If you can make it to the bed, you can fall there as easy as anywhere.”

I did manage to get upstairs and strip off my clothes and crawl under the covers. Justin came in a few minutes later and turned off the lights and took off his clothes and got in with me. He didn’t seem mad at all, and he snuggled up to me just like he always did. I tried to remember why I was worried about that, but I couldn’t. And then I fell asleep.

**Justin’s POV**

I wished Brian didn’t always have to fuck himself up to figure out what he wanted to do about shit, but he did. And I was glad Michael was there to get him home, so when I found him in the kitchen making popcorn in the microwave at midnight, I decided a night of TV and junk food didn’t sound so bad. And Brian was sort of adorable when he was half-drunk, half-high, and getting carbed-up at night. I didn’t tell him I’d melted half a cube of butter onto the popcorn, either.

Brian passed out before the movie was over, but Michael and I watched it until the end. Michael’d seen it about fourteen times already, but that’s what he did with movies he liked. I think Brian had seen One Eyed Jacks at least twenty times. Michael and I were making a plan to get together and talk about Rage when Brian woke up.

He was kind of cute even if he was totally fucked up, so I brought him upstairs and curled up with him and went to sleep.

I woke up with Brian kneeling next to the bed playing with my hair. I blinked at him and he gave me a little smile and stuck his tongue in his cheek.

I scooted away and let him slip in next to me, wrapping my arms and legs around him while he scrunched himself into the warm spot I’d been lying in. He touched his forehead to mine, and slid his hands onto either side of my face and kissed me, a soft little morning kiss. I let it turn into something more, and then he broke away and just looked into my eyes. He was twisting his lips around that way he did when he was nervous, but his body where it was twining with mine, his long legs and his warm arms, felt relaxed. He smiled a little and kissed me again, and then smooshed my nose with his.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Hey.”

He kissed me again. “I ummm, I want to try that thing.” His lips turned in again, and this time I could feel some tension in his body, at least in his arms.

“OK.” I paused for a minute. “Could you be more specific?”

“I want us to…” and he dropped a little kiss on my forehead … “go three months…” and he was twisting my hair with his fingers, but gently … “without fucking other guys …” and then he pushed my hair back off my face with his right hand and cupped the back of my neck with his left … “and take an HIV test…” he kissed me again, softly, and his lips were dry… “and if everything’s OK, you know…” he nuzzled my neck … “I want to fuck you without a condom.”

Some things are hard to grasp ten seconds after waking up. This was one of them. I just sort of lay there blinking, with my hands on his upper arms and my head tucked under his chin.

Brian bent his legs and pushed mine apart, sliding his folded knees in between mine and pulling my hips up and in towards him with his hands. My left leg was lying over his waist, and I worked my right leg between his body and the mattress. We were still lying side by side, facing each other, our crotches tight together, my legs wrapped around him. He kept pulling me in closer, and nuzzling my hair and face and neck.

My first instinct was to ask if he was sure, but then I thought about how I hate the second guessing thing when he does it to me. And how I said no the first time he asked me to marry him. And the look on his face when I did.

So then my second instinct was to throw my arms around his neck and cry and tell him I loved him, which would have had two definite disadvantages, those being, one, Brian would have fucking hated it and two, I’d have looked like a lovesick teenager, which I was kind of trying to get away from.

So I just looked into his eyes and smiled at him. And pressed a kiss on his mouth and said, “I want that too.”  



	4. Decisions, Chapter 4

  
  
  
  
**  
****Decisions, Chapter 4**  
By Xie

 _As we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about._ -Joseph Epstein

**Brian’s POV**

I felt my headache getting worse. I massaged the bridge of my nose. I thought about drugs, sex, and shopping. Nothing helped.

I was standing out on the front porch while Melanie and Lindsay got the last load of stuff into their car. I had been up and down the stairs fifteen times in the last half hour, bringing down load after load of baby crap and Christmas gifts that, for some reason, I had bought for Gus.

JR was in her baby seat in the car. Justin was trying to help Mel get one last suitcase into the back and still get the door closed. Gus was racing around in circles on the snow-covered front lawn.

Lindsay walked up to me, and I came down the steps and hugged her goodbye. She kissed my cheek and smiled, and I held onto her for a second.

She pulled away and squeezed my arm. “Oh, I almost forgot, I meant to give this to you. It’s the bill for the scaffolding.”

I didn’t take it. “That’s Justin’s, you can give it to him.”

“Give me what?” Justin was coming up the path with Gus. Lindsay turned to him, a little confused.

“It’s the bill for the scaffolding, Brian said I should give it to you.” My headache got worse again.

Justin took it. “I’ll get you a check before you go…”

“No, there’s a bill, just go ahead and send the check to them.” She looked like she wanted to say more but she bit it back, smiled, and hugged Justin goodbye. He hugged her back, and he went down to the car to say goodbye to Mel and JR. I took Gus down to the car and buckled him into his safety seat and waved as they pulled out. Justin was standing on the other side of the car, and he was waving too.

“I’m gonna miss them.” He sounded sentimental.

I walked over to him and grinned. “We’ll see them all the time. And now I can fuck you in every room of the house again.” I pulled him close and kissed him, my hands grabbing his hair. He put his arms around me and let his tongue play with mine, and then he pulled away a little. Our foreheads were still touching and he was burrowing inside my coat.

“Brian?”

“Mmmm?” I kissed his face. It felt cold.

“Brian, when did you STOP fucking me in every room of the house?”

I stopped to consider. “Oh yeah. Well, now we can throw out all the junk food.”

We went inside and I dragged him into the living room and pushed him back onto the sofa and fell down on top of him, kissing him the whole time. He was laughing.

“Lindsay tried to give my bill to you?”

“Yeah.” I kissed him again, hoping to shut him up. It never worked.

“She thinks I’m your MISTRESS.” He was giggling. I kissed him again and grabbed his hand and pulled it to my crotch.

“Yeah, if you were my mistress you’d be blowing me now instead of laughing about it.”

He cupped his hand around my cock and whispered, “Yeah? So if I blow you it means I’m your mistress?”

I thought about that for a minute. “No, only if I’d paid the bill.”

He buried his face in my neck and slid his hand inside my jeans. “Good answer.”

**Justin’s POV**

The first couple of weeks after Mel and Lindz and the kids left were weird, but good. It was strange to suddenly have four other people, one of whom was a totally unpredictable, noisy, bossy six-year-old kid, just disappear. Along with the seemingly endless supply of Cap’n Crunch, popcorn, and cookies that had once filled our kitchen cupboards. I wondered what Brian would do if I replaced all of it.

I went to New York for a week at the end of January, and Brian came up the weekend the show opened at Armand’s gallery. I had four pieces in it, and all four of them sold. A bunch of us went out to celebrate afterwards, including Kalli, who was glowing over the success of the first big show she’d put together since going to work for Armand full time. Brian bought us all champagne with dinner and then took us out dancing. I got drunk and danced with Kalli on the platform at a gay club. It was like dancing with Emmett, because she shimmied just like he did and in her high heels was about as tall as him, too. Brian finally came and dragged us both down, dropped Kalli off at her apartment, and took me back to our hotel. I fell asleep in the back of the limo with my head on his shoulder.

I’d told Kalli about the painting I was working on, and she promised to come see it when it was done. I worked on it every day, but found that something about transferring smaller designs onto a big canvas was fucking up my hand more than usual. I was starting to freak out a little, and one day, after I’d dropped my brush three times in a row, I took a deep breath, climbed off the scaffold, and drove into town to see Michael. He’d been bugging me to come by and look at ideas he had for Rage and I’d been putting it off.

The shop was fairly quiet when I went in, only three teenagers browsing the racks, and Michael came out from behind the counter and hugged me. I’d brought us both coffees from the Starbucks up the street.

Michael’s story ideas were good, but I hesitated.

“I don’t know, Michael, I have to think about it. I’m working on a painting, and if it’s ready I want it to be in a show in the spring, and I’ve only got so much time.” But I was lying. It wasn’t really time that was the problem, it was my hand. Which I realized I was unconsciously rubbing. I’d been doing that a lot lately.

Michael had known me a long time, and had some kind of radar for when I was lying anyway. He looked at my hand, which I’d stopped rubbing the minute I’d noticed what I was doing, and then at me. He even raised his eyebrow, something he must have picked up from Brian in high school. But he just said, “Yeah?”

I sighed. “My hand’s been bugging me.”

Michael kind of frowned. “What are you doing for it?”

“The physical therapist just said I have to rest it when that happens, there’s nothing else. Take an Advil, whatever.” Which did no fucking good at all.

He didn’t say anything right away, just seemed to be thinking about what to say. “Well, how about after the show, then? If we’re gonna do this, we should do it this summer.”

I promised to let him know, and he said he’d email the story ideas to me, and I took off.

When I got home, Brian was in the kitchen, unpacking Chinese food takeout.

“Hi, honey, what’s for dinner?” I threw my jacket on the back of a chair and sat down and smirked at him. He leaned against the counter and looked at me.

“Well, if you get your ass up off that chair and walk over here and put it on a plate, Chinese food.”

“You’re so mean.”

“It’s tough love.”

I got up and walked over to the food. “You admit you love me?”

“In a tough, manly kind of way, sure.” And he dumped an entire container of kung pao chicken on a plate and walked out of the room with it.

But he did bump me with his shoulder when he walked by and he let me eat some chicken off his plate on the floor in front of the TV.

After dinner, I went back into the studio and saw my paintbrush lying on the floor where I’d dropped it. I should have cleaned it, should have cleaned up everything. I started soaking and washing brushes and putting my paint away, and then went and turned on my computer. I was re-reading Michael’s notes on Rage when Brian came in.

“Not painting?” He glanced up at the canvas on the wall, and could probably tell I hadn’t done much on it that day. I just shrugged.

He came over and sat on the corner of my desk. He looked like he was going to say something, but then he didn’t. I raised an eyebrow at him. He stuck his tongue into his cheek. I wondered how long we could go on making faces at each other instead of talking.

“OK, my hand has been fucked.” I had this constant problem lately of shit coming out of my mouth without my knowledge or consent.

Brian sighed and leaned down and put his forehead on the top of my head. He picked up my right hand, and I had to fight the impulse to pull it away. He could tell anyway, and he let my hand go. I looked at him and he lifted his eyebrows.

“What’s been happening?”

I got up and walked over to the pile of paint rags I’d thrown on the table and started sorting them into two completely meaningless piles. I began to see why my not talking had gotten Brian to talk. The silence was getting way too meaningful for me.

“It’s nothing new. It’s just really starting to interfere, with my getting what I want out there.” I hated saying it, because really, I didn’t want him to know it. Stuff like this sometimes bothered him more than it bothered me. And this was bothering me a lot.

“I went to the physical therapist, it was a bunch of bullshit. ‘Take an Advil. Ice it. Rest.’ The same crap as always.” I sat down at the table and started putting the rags back into one pile. One rag at a time.

I glanced over at Brian. He was still sitting over on the edge of my desk. I was glad that he didn’t look too upset, not as upset as he usually did when my hand was really bad. He actually looked kind of thoughtful.

“Maybe there’s something else you could try.”

I shrugged that off. “I think I’ve tried everything.”

He sighed. “Well, it’ll be better in the morning, right?” I nodded. It would be. It always started out fine. Brian got up from the table and came over and put out his hand. I took it and he pulled me up. “Let’s go to bed. Then it’ll be morning and everything will be fine.”

I laughed. “Yeah, which translates, c’mon upstairs and give me a blowjob, that’ll make everything all right.” He grinned at me.

“It will.”

“Promise?”

He bumped my forehead with his. “I promise.”

He went upstairs and I finally got the rags sorted out just the way I wanted them, in the same big heap they’d been in when I started. I set out my brushes to dry, turned off my computer and the lights, and went upstairs.

Brian was already in bed, and I took off my clothes and climbed in with him. He pulled me into his arms and started playing with my hair and kissing the side of my neck. This was his favorite way to force me to tell him things I otherwise wanted to brood on.

“What about that acupuncture thing Daphne was talking about?”

I couldn’t believe he’d said that. “Are you out of your mind? That stuff doesn’t work, it makes no sense.”

“You don’t know that. She said it helped her.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It can’t hurt.”

I looked at him. He looked serious. “They stick needles in you.”

“Daphne said it didn’t hurt.”

I thought about it for a minute. “It’s so Ben-like.”

“You really can’t pick and choose things you do in life based on whether Ben has ever done them.” He suddenly moved up on top of me and straddled me, holding my wrists back over the bed. “For instance, you might miss out on some really hot things.” He kissed me.

I grinned at him. “Like… tofu stir-fry?”

“Like, getting fucked by me with your hands tied to the headboard.”

I thought about that. “Or like marrying Michael or adopting Hunter?”

That shut him up. But just for a minute. “OK, but the point is, you can pick and choose. Tied to the bed, yes, tofu stir-fry, no. Acupuncture, yes, adopting Hunter, no. Simple.”

I sighed and he rolled off me and pulled me over so my head was lying on his chest. “I’ll talk to Daphne. But I still say it’s completely pointless and unscientific.”

“Probably.” He put his hand up and I put my palm against his. His fingers were longer than mine. He kissed my hair and I lifted my face up to him, and he kissed my mouth. I put my head back down. Our hands were still pressed together, and he was looking at them. I curled my fingers and he intertwined his with mine. “But you could try it anyway.”

I kissed his chest. “Not everything can be fixed, Brian.”

He was still holding my hand, and he moved his other hand to the back of my neck. I felt him cupping it, cradling it, and I kept my face buried in Brian’s chest.

“And some things can.” His voice was quiet and just a little bit rough.

I lifted up my head and kissed him, letting go of his hand and pulling him on top of me, my legs spreading under him and my knees bent. I remembered a time when I tried to comfort him with words but couldn’t touch him at all, and how what worked best was the opposite, touching and not words.

Brian was kissing me, his hands in my hair. I was holding onto his wrists and my feet were resting on the backs of his legs, and I was starting to rock against him slightly, feeling his cock against my thigh, getting hard. Mine already was, pressing into his abdomen. He started to slide down me, but that wasn’t what I wanted, and I let him know, keeping hold of him, moving my legs up and wrapping them around his back.

He tucked his face into my neck and kissed me, taking a little bit of skin between his teeth and biting just enough to leave a mark. I let go of his left wrist and reached out my hand and got lube and a condom from the bedside drawer, and he pulled back from me and took them, and smiled a little at me while he put the condom on. He squirted lube onto my fingers, and I reached down and slid one into my asshole. He was sitting back on his heels, watching, and when I put a second finger in, and bent them and moved them apart, he settled in between my legs and kissed my fingers, and licked them. Then he started to nibble and bite at the inside of my thighs, and then I decided that was enough playing and pulled my fingers out of my ass and dragged him back up on top of me.

He kissed me and said, in a conversational tone of voice, “I fucking hate this condom.”

I laughed. “Just don’t think about it. Two more months. Then no more condoms. Just skin.”

Brian groaned. “Two months. This is gonna kill me.”

I put my mouth up to his ear and pulled him tight into me with my legs. “It’ll be over before you know it. Now fuck me.”

**Brian’s POV**

I could literally feel Justin not talking. I wasn’t sure if he thought I didn’t want to talk, which was probably true, or if he didn’t want to talk. So I smiled at him, because I didn’t want him to worry while I fucked him. He could worry later.

I loved seeing his fingers inside of him, his hole all stretched out around them. I loved the way the insides of his thighs felt on my lips, smooth and sensitive. He shivered when I kissed him there. And then he pulled me up with that “fuck me RIGHT NOW” look in his eyes.

I put the head of my dick right at the opening of his hole, and just let it rest there. He wriggled against me and started to move his hand down, but I stopped him and pushed just a little. He thrust up and the head went in, and then I stopped, shifting my weight back and moving my hands off the mattress and onto his hips to keep him from pushing up again.

He moved on the bed, frustrated, and I pulled back out almost all the way, the tip of my cock barely there, and then pushed it back in, stopping again just when I got the head inside.

“Brian.” He was pulling me with his legs and pushing up against my hands. I liked him like this, all squirmy and trying not to beg. I smiled at him.

“Yeah?”

“Fuck. Me.”

I pulled the head back out again, pausing just at the very point of being all the way out of him, and then slowly eased it past the tight entrance again. Every time I pulled back and every time I pushed in, that tight ring of muscle squeezed my cock, and then locked around me. And then I dragged it back out slowly, and pushed it in again slowly, and Justin was going slowly and noisily nuts right under me. He was groaning every time I pulled back, and holding me tight with his legs, and I did it one more time and he started chanting “fuck me fuck me fuck me Brian just FUCK ME” over and over, his legs crossing halfway up my back and his arms reaching down and pulling at my waist.

I eased my cock in again, and paused just like all the other times, but this time I slid into him a little more, and he relaxed and opened up for me, biting at my neck and kissing me and moaning while I went deeper and deeper into him. I knew payback was going to be a bitch, and it was. His ass was working on my cock and when I let go of his hips and put my hands back on the mattress so I could have some leverage to really fuck him, he started to thrust up at me and grab onto my cock with his ass until I was about three seconds away from coming. I felt a tingling sensation in my balls and my abdominal muscles clenched, and I fought down the impulse to mindlessly thrust into him and explode.

I slowed it down a little and pulled back from the edge, and concentrated on stroking Justin’s prostate every time I pulled in and out. He was at that point where he’d crossed his arms over his face, and I hissed his name, and he moved them back, and opened his eyes and looked at me. His lips were parted and his eyes were glassy and dark. His skin was all blotchy and flushed and I changed the angle I was fucking him a little and he bucked his hips and bit his lip and closed his eyes again. I saw him move his arms like he wanted them back over his face, but he didn’t. He knew I liked watching him come.

He was biting hard on his lip and his head was back. I wanted to kiss his throat but I couldn’t, it was all I could do to just keep moving my cock in and out of him, hitting him just on his prostate every time. He arched his back and finally grabbed his cock and started jerking on it, and I put my head down and fucked his orgasm up and out of him, all over his hand and my chest and his stomach. And as soon as I felt the tight grip of his ass on my cock while he came, I did too, big waves of it pulsing over me and out of me, inside of Justin. And then I just knelt there, trying to get my breath, my head still down.

And Justin shifted me down next to him, and cleaned us both off with a towel, and kissed me and smiled at me and climbed back under the covers and kissed me some more. I pulled him down and curled up around him, feeling warm and tired. I didn’t think about anything, I just fell asleep.

**Justin’s POV**

I woke up the next day and even though I still thought it was the stupidest and most useless idea Daphne had ever come up with, which was saying a lot, I called and asked her about the acupuncture thing. She was all excited about the prospect of my being skewered alive, and gave me the name and number of the acupuncturist she’d gone to, who also worked at the low income clinic where Daphne was interning that semester.

Whether the voodoo worked or not, my hand started being a little better. One day I even started sketching out some ideas for the next Rage, and realized at some point I’d been drawing for almost an hour.

Brian never smirked or said he told me so, and I was careful not to mention to Daphne that my hand was better, because I’d have never heard the end of it. Besides, I didn’t want to jinx it. Since I found it easier to believe in jinxes than acupuncture.

Whatever the reason, by the end of February I had gotten more done on the painting than I’d thought I would, and I called Kalli and told her to come anytime after the weekend. I was standing there staring at the painting the next Sunday morning, and Brian was standing behind me. They’d taken down the scaffolding the day before.

It was huge, and grey, and shot through with blue pigment, almost like really old pottery. There was a wide, uneven black slash running diagonally across the upper left of the painting. The right side had a burst of orange and gold flowing out over the grey and blue, or not really flowing but spraying. Like it was over it, not erupting from under it. It wasn’t like flames at all, though. I thought it looked like someone had dropped a huge mass of hot-colored flowers down on the pavement, but everything in intense close-up, so all you saw were colors and textures. Slices and ribbons and lines of orange and gold, on top of the blue-crackled grey.

Brian had both his arms around my neck, and I put my hands up and rested them on his forearms. I leaned back into him, and smiled. I tipped back my head, and he was looking at the painting.

“Well?” I always had to ask him.

“It’s beautiful and intense. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done. It’s fucking huge.” He grinned at me when he said that, and I grinned back. It really was ridiculously big. I must have been out of my mind.

Later that week, Kalli came running up to the front door, laughing in her patented Kalli way. Her hair was springing out all around her face out from under a black hat, and she was wearing black jeans, black boots, and, just to add a splash of color, a dark grey sweater under her black jacket. God, I missed New York.

She threw her arms around me and smacked me on my cheek, no doubt leaving blood red lipstick marks. Sort of an urban chic version of the Deb experience.

I didn’t even bother showing her around the house. I took her right into my studio, and unlike everyone else who ever saw it, she didn’t comment on its size or the light or how much Brian must really love me to have built it. She just walked over to my painting and stood there staring.

I was used to Kalli looking at paintings, so I sat down at the computer and fucked around aimlessly for a while on the ideas Michael had sent me for Rage. I had half an eye on her, so when she finally turned around and looked for me, I was ready. “Well?”

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Justin.” She looked slightly pale.

“Is that good?” I knew it was, I just wanted her to say it.

“I don’t even know. Good. What a totally lame word.” She went and sat down at the worktable. “Fuck.”

“You know, you’re good at running a gallery, I’m thinking as an art critic, not so much.”

“Don’t beg for praise, little boy. You know this is good, you don’t need me to tell you.”

She sounded like Brian. Except he tended to like me to beg.

I grinned at her. “You like it. Will Armand?”

“Armand is going to have a fucking orgasm when he sees this. Or rather, when he figures out how the hell to get it in the gallery. What were you thinking, doing something this big when you’re not established enough to get away with it?”

“I was thinking I was lucky not to have to worry about that.”

“Jesus, if this is what getting plowed by that gorgeous man does to your creativity, do you think he’d fuck me?”

I burst out laughing. “No, actually, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t. But hey, I’ll let him know you asked.”

She got up and turned and looked at the painting again. “Do you have anything else, or is this it?”

“Just the smaller variations I did when I was working it out.” I showed them to her, and she kept shaking her head and saying “fuck” a lot.

“OK, let me call Armand, he told me to call the minute I saw what you had.”

She got him on her cell phone. “It’s me. We’re fucked, the thing is as big as a barn. And if you don’t find a way to get it in the gallery, I’m quitting.”

She listened for a while, and I went back to the computer. She paced all over the studio talking to Armand, gesturing frequently, which I’m sure helped him understand the nuances of her position. I’d never actually seen anyone pace in four-inch heels before, it was sort of mesmerizing. She finally snapped her cell phone shut and turned to me with a happy expression on her face.

“He totally hates you. He’ll have someone here to pick it up within the month.”

“He trusts you that much?”

“Despite the aspersions you cast on my abilities as an art critic, I’ve never been wrong.”

“Yeah, well, you’re young, give it time.”

“Do you hear that a lot, little blond boy?”

“Bitch. I have no control over that.” I felt myself blushing.

“Jesus, Justin, you blush like a 12-year-old girl, I’ve never known anyone who blushed as much as you. So, what’s a girl got to do around here to get something to drink?”

I took her out to the kitchen and got her a beer, and we went into the living room. She stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle.

“Fuck, Justin. Explain it to me really slow, in words a six year old could understand: How did you meet this guy and where can I get one just like him who likes girls?”

“He picked me up under a street light when I was in high school.”

“OK, is that a true story or are you fucking with my head?”

“It’s a true story.”

“So it’s too late for me. I’m just fucked.”

“Yeah, you are. Plus, there’s only one Brian.” Then I blushed again. I had to get over that.  
 ****  
Brian’s POV  
  
There’s a point where overhearing turns into blatant eavesdropping, and I’d crossed that line several sentences before. I cleared my throat and came into the room, and Justin got up and came over and kissed me on the cheek. His face was flushed, and I knew he was wondering what I’d heard. I smiled at him and winked at Kalli.

“So, what did you think of it?”

“It was spectacular. You seem to have a beneficial influence on Justin’s creative process. Tragically he tells me you don’t like girls. Tell me there’s something you’ve been hiding from him all these years.”

I laughed. “Sorry. Besides, the effect only seems to work on Justin.” There went the blush thing again. He looked 16. He was so easy.

Justin went to the kitchen to get another beer, and I poured myself a Jack Daniels. Kalli shook her head when I offered her some. “Thanks, but I’m driving. Which by the way, I hate. I knew I lived in New York for a reason. The lack of needing to drive must be it.”

“The painting. Is it as good as I think it is?”

“I have no words.”

“I’m going to guess that’s not literally true.”

She sat there for a few minutes, just looking at my face. “I don’t know if you know how good it is, but the fact that you’re asking that question makes me think you probably do. Yeah, it’s that good.”

“Will it sell?”

“Justin is not well known. He’s very young, and he looks younger, and he’s too blond and pretty. Armand is pretty hot on him, which helps, but no gallery owner can make an artist without something else. The piece is huge, which means it will be hard to hang, for us, and for anyone who might want it in their collection. There are all kinds of problems with this work.”

She paused and then said, “It will sell before we open the show.”

I bit down on my lip. I’d kind of thought that myself, but what did I know?

She added, speaking slowly, “It makes me want to go home and crawl in my bed and never paint again, because there’s just really no point at all.”

Justin came back in the room with two beers, and gave one to Kalli. I wondered how long he’d been standing in the hall outside, overhearing.

I took them to dinner, and then to Babylon. The three of us danced for a while, and then I went over to the bar to get a drink. Emmett was there, relatively glitter-free for him. It was a weeknight.

“Justin certainly has the best hags.” He took a sip of his Cosmo.

“She’s here from New York looking at his paintings for a show.” I took a swallow of my beer. I’d decided to stay sober enough to drive home tonight, in case Justin wanted to get drunk and celebrate. He looked flushed and happy on the dance floor, even though he hadn’t had anything but wine with dinner. A butch-looking blonde in a tank top had danced over to them and was trying to lure Kalli off to dance with her, and Justin laughed and waved Kalli away, and walked over to me and Emmett.

“Hey, Em.” He kissed Emmett’s cheek and then came and put his sweaty self in my arms and took a sip of my beer. I kissed him and he smiled at me. So I kissed him again. He turned all the way into me and I bent my knees so I was closer to his face.

“You two really should get a room, you know.” It was Emmett, laughing at us.

I barely broke my mouth away from Justin’s, my hands on either side of his face. He was running his hands up and down inside my shirt. “Can you keep an eye on Kalli? For… ten minutes?” Justin bit me. “Twenty minutes?”

Emmett vowed to protect Justin’s New York hag with his life, and Justin and I went over towards the stairs. He stopped me after we’d taken a few steps, and pressed his whole body against me and kissed me slow and hard, his tongue stroking all over my mouth, his hands on my bare skin under my shirt. He let his hand slip down between us and flattened his palm against my cock and pressed, hard, and I turned around and pushed him against the wall behind us.

I got my knee up under his crotch and he let his weight rest on it, his cock pressing into my thigh and his hands undoing the buttons on my jeans. I put my hand on his wrist and stopped him, and then dragged him over to the doorway to the backroom.

The security guy looked surprised but just nodded when we went by, and I ignored him. Justin didn’t even notice him, he was walking behind me, his hands on my hips, kissing the back of my neck. I grabbed him and yanked him into me, and cupped his ass with one hand and opened his pants with the other. I reached in, feeling him all hot and hard, wrapping my fingers around his cock. He had his hands back on my jeans, and he was pushing them down, and this time I let him push me against an empty space on the wall.

He grinned up at me then, and undid the buttons on my shirt, and finished unbuttoning my jeans, and then slowly licked down my chest. He flicked his tongue over my nipples and sucked on each one, and then kissed and bit at me as he knelt down in front of me. He smiled up at me again and then pressed his face into my stomach, and then started nuzzling my cock, his hand wrapping around the base.

He licked at the head and I felt my breath catch. His tongue started swirling on me and I spread my legs a little more, letting myself sag into the wall. He was jerking me with his hand and licking me with his tongue, and I felt my hips start to thrust a little. I wanted to watch, but I couldn’t stop from arching my neck back when he locked his lips around me and grabbed the backs of my thighs with both his hands and went all the way down on me in one motion. I groaned and got my hands in his hair, and held onto two handfuls of it while he swallowed and sucked and licked me, pulling me in by the backs of my legs and moaning softly around my cock.

It’s the kind of feeling that you wouldn’t mind going on for hours but the whole thing about feeling like that is, it can’t. In just a couple of minutes, I felt myself start to come and he pulled back a little, moving his hand back to my cock, and letting me fill up his mouth while I pulled his hair in my fists and groaned. And then I was done, and just resting on that wall, my head tipped back, his warm mouth still on me. I could feel his breath on my skin.

I let go of his hair and smoothed it back, and then he looked up at me, and smiled a little, my come on his lips and a little bit on his face. I reached down and pulled him up, and he leaned into me, pressing himself against my chest and stomach and groin, and I licked my come off his face and tasted it in his mouth.

Justin took my hand and put it on his cock, and I moved my hand on it, catching the precum that was making the head wet and rubbing it over the shaft. We were kissing and he was so close to me I couldn’t get much movement between us, but his hard cock got harder while I jerked it and he pressed himself against me suddenly, and started to come. He stayed leaning on me, breathing hard, and in a minute I realized we hadn’t exactly thought this through, since he’d just come all over my jeans. And we were kind of a sticky mess. And I just kissed him and laughed and he laughed up at me, and tucked his head under my chin and said, “Ooops.”

“Well, you know…. Oooops is bullshit.” I grinned at him.

“Tell me you have clean clothes up in the office.”

I shook my head.

“A towel?” I thought about it, and nodded.

“I own this place, I’m going to guess someone will give me a towel.”

“Yeah, Brian, go on out to the bar and tell the guy your boyfriend just came all over your pants, and get a towel.”

“You just came all over my pants in front of all these people, and I have to go out there and get a towel?”

He leaned into me a little harder and kissed my neck.

We just stayed there for a while, and then I fastened up his pants, and mine, and straightened out his shirt, and buttoned a couple buttons on mine, and we went out and found a towel.  



	5. Decisions, Chapter 5

  
  
  
  
**  
****Decisions, Chapter 5**  
By Xie

_Success is generally due to holding on, and failure to letting go. The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip that nothing can detach, will bring success._ -Maltbie Davenport Babcock

**Brian’s POV**

“You know, you really do get the best toys.”

Justin lifted his toes out of the bubbling water of the newly installed hot tub and snuggled a little more deeply against me. I ignored the rapidly pruning surface of my skin and wrapped my arms around him tighter and kissed the damp back of his neck.

“Like you?”

“I’m not a TOY!” He laughed and let his head drop back on my shoulder. “Am I?” He was in a flirty mood.

Which was fine with me.

“You’re a very high maintenance toy.” I bounced him a little with my legs and slid my hands down and spread his thighs. He slipped down in the water a tiny bit, still pressed up against me, but with his hands looped under my knees to keep him from floating away. I moved my hands up and down the inside of his thighs, with the hot water swirling all around.

“Like, what, the Corvette?” His eyes were half closed and he was very slightly rocking himself against me.

“The Corvette can only dream of being as high maintenance as you are. The Corvette doesn’t ever want to discuss our relationship, the Corvette doesn’t smear itself with full-fat ice cream and force me to lick it off, the Corvette doesn’t embarrass me in public with the loudness of its stomach rumbling when its gas tank is getting low, and the Corvette doesn’t stay up until 4 in the morning painting and then wake me up to fuck it when I have to go to work the next day.”

Justin reflected on this for a few minutes, while he slowly slid the crack of his ass over my dick.

“The Corvette,” he said thoughtfully, “doesn’t give the best head in Pittsburgh.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“In Pennsylvania?”

I shook my head.

“On the East Coast?”

“Based on my extensive research, I think you can probably say the country.”

He turned around in my arms and knelt on the bench between my legs. His hands were on my shoulders and he was smiling at me in a way he usually only did when he was really high. A kind of blissful look. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it. He leaned forward and kissed me with his lips and his tongue and even his teeth, a little bit. Then he pulled back, resting his forehead on mine.

“That would mean so much more if I didn’t just think you were saying it to get me to blow you.” Then he giggled. We’d smoked just a little pot, since there was no way my public service announcement was going to let us get into our new hot tub when we were seriously under the influence. Maybe it was just too much hot water. I got pruney and he got buzzed.

“If you didn’t give the best head in the United States, why would I bother?” He giggled again.

I decided we’d both had enough hot water and stood up, pulling him up by his hand. I felt the exact moment his body took on weight as it left the water. I stepped out of the hot tub and held his hand while he stepped out after me, and pulled him into my arms all wet and dripping. Wet Justin was probably one of my favorite things, but with him gloating over the blowjob compliment I didn’t mention it.

I just held him close and kissed him. He nuzzled his head into my neck, and then leaned into me, hard. “Mmmmm. All that hot water makes me tired.”

I smiled against his hair. “Too tired to put up a fight. I like that.”

“Brian?”

“Mmmm?” I was kissing his ear.

“Brian, when have I ever put up a fight?”

“Oh, yeah.” I stuck my tongue in his ear and wiggled it, and he giggled and arched his back at the same time. “Let’s go to bed.”

“What’s wrong with here?” We had two big double lounge chairs between the hot tub and the pool.

“Condoms. Lube. Upstairs.”

“That’s very bad planning.”

I nodded. It was. We went upstairs.

**Brian’s POV**

I had just gotten to my desk the next morning when Ted walked in. I took a sip of coffee.

“So, does the super-sized quintuple-shot latte help with the fatigue caused by having a horny 23-year-old at home?”

“I’m trying to imagine any situation in which I would I need your advice about dealing with a horny 23-year-old.”

Ted laughed. “OK, then, let’s try some advice on the Brown Athletics account.” And he set a pile of papers down on my desk. And I felt nostalgia for the lecture on horny 23-year-olds.

Forty-five minutes later, having once again made the world safe for men’s underwear sales, I sat back and watched Ted gather up all his papers and files.

“One more thing, Brian. Richard Bohling asked if you could meet with him in New York to discuss his new campaign for the club and some ideas on a new restaurant he’s opening – and I thought you might want to combine it with Justin’s opening.”

I nodded. “Sure. Have Cyn…Elaine set it up.” I kept trying to remember I’d promoted Cynthia out of doing every single thing I needed done the minute I needed it, but usually I forgot.

Ted left and I called Justin.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Remember that club we went to in New York?”

There was a short pause, and when he answered his voice was amused. “Yeah, I remember. Why?”

“The owner wants to meet about a new campaign when I’m there for your opening, any problem with you if we go a day early? And maybe have dinner with him?”

“Hmmm. Will you take me out dancing and ply me with liquor and Ecstasy and fuck me in public?”

“Is that a condition of going, or just a general request?”

“More a reminiscence.”

I grinned. “It’s possible I could be persuaded to do something like that.”

“Then I guess it’s possible I’ll go to New York a day early and attend a boring business dinner with you.”

I smiled, and then my other line rang. “Later.”

“Later.”

When I got home that night, only the automated lights were on, and I could hear music from Justin’s studio. I went upstairs and changed, and then came down and stuck my head in the open door. He never closed it.

“Have you had dinner?”

He looked over at me, his face distracted and a blob of blue paint under his left eye. I went and got a rag and walked over to him and wiped it off. It left a blue streak on his skin. He smiled at me. “Not yet, did you bring something?”

I nodded. “I brought food. It’s in the kitchen.” I turned and looked at what he was painting. It seemed like he’d just started this one, and it was mostly a field of blue right now. “This is new.”

He nodded. “I have something finished over there,” and he gestured vaguely to the right. I walked over and looked.

Everything he’d painted lately had a similar finish, like he was glazing them. But he wasn’t. He’d told me it was just the paint and the brushes he was using. Even things that were very textured had a sheen on them, making it all seem warmer and more accessible than acrylic paintings sometimes do. I wanted to touch them.

This painting had a field of brown speckled with darker brown and with black. It was slashed and divided with red that was edged in black, irregular, but in the way that things that look solid become irregular when you enlarge them. And then that same burnished effect over everything, almost making the eye try to soften out the ridges and the heavy layers of paint.

Justin walked up behind me and put his chin on my shoulder. He looked at the painting with me. “What do you think?”

“New colors for you.”

“I got bored.”

I looked at it some more. “You designed this on the computer.”

He didn’t say anything, and I glanced down at him. He was smiling.

I looked back at it. At first I hadn’t really realized it, but the underlying digital effect was what made the whole thing almost hypnotic, made you want to stare at it and follow all the lines to where they very slightly converging in the lower middle of the painting.

“This is amazing.”

“Thanks.” It was pretty much all he ever said, but he looked happy. I hoped he never lost his mojo, because the day I had to tell him something sucked was not a day I was looking forward to. And although I can see the difference between graphic art, the kind of stuff I work with every day, and the kind of work Justin does, at some point, everyone gets blocked or off track at one time or another.

Some of that must have showed on my face, because he looked at me.

“What?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering what to say if I ever think something doesn’t work.”

“What you used to tell me when I interned at Vangard: ‘Taylor, this sucks. Fix it.’ Maybe a little nicer, so I don’t make you sleep in the guest room.” He grinned at me.

I laughed. “Kalli would tell you making me sleep in the guest room is the opposite of what you should do if you experience creative obstacles.” I pulled him into my arms, thinking maybe we could give his creativity a boost before eating, when his stomach growled. I glared at him.

Justin burst out laughing. “I swear, Brian, I have no control over that.” He smacked my arm and then took my hand and pulled me toward the door. “Dinner. Then sex.”

**Justin’s POV**

Brian had brought home Chinese food, and we ate it on the sofa in the media room. I had to use a fork, my hand couldn’t manage the chopsticks.

After dinner, we were sitting on the sofa and Brian was massaging my hand. I had my eyes closed and my head was resting on his shoulder. I felt warm and sleepy and horny, and as soon as his fingers started working their way up the inside of my arm, I sat up and leaned into him and kissed him.

“Mmmmm.” He kissed me, and slid his hands under my shirt and started stroking my back and sides. I took off my t-shirt, and he took off his.

Then he leaned back, pulling me into his lap. I was lying on his chest, outlining his muscles with my tongue, licking his nipples, and his hands were stroking my hair and the back of my neck. He gave a sigh, the kind of sigh you give when you finally get into bed after a long, exhausting day. It made me smile.

He pulled me up and kissed me, one hand still in my hair and his other hand cupping my neck. I held onto him and kissed him back, our mouths open and our tongues taking turns licking the insides of each other’s mouths.

The hand on my neck moved down my back and he slipped it inside my sweats. I still felt drowsy, and his tongue in my mouth and his hand moving slowly up and down on my cock felt so good, and his chest and arms were so warm, it almost felt like a fantasy I’d sometimes had in New York when I couldn’t sleep, that Brian was holding me and playing with me. I just let him touch me and kiss me, not doing anything except murmuring into his mouth.

After a few minutes I started to thrust up into his hand and he moved it faster, and I dropped my head to his shoulder and grabbed him around his neck. I felt myself start to come, and Brian’s fist clenched in my hair while my come shot out over my stomach and thighs and his hand. And when I was done, his hand smoothed down my hair and he pulled my sweats back up and kept me nestled in his arms. I started to kiss him and he kissed me back and then whispered in my ear, “It’s ok, just go to sleep, Justin.” And his hand was in my hair and his other hand was making soft circles on my back, and I just let myself fall asleep right there.

I woke up and didn’t realize where I was at first, and then I remembered. There was a blanket over me.

I sat up and looked for Brian. He was sitting at the computer, and he smiled when he saw me.

“You’re awake.”

“Sort of.” I stood up and stretched, the blanket falling to the floor.

Brian looked tired. I didn’t like him telling me I was painting too late, so I usually tried not to drag him off his computer, but now and then I decided a double standard wasn’t the worst thing in the world and just went with it. I went over and crouched down next to him and put my hand on his thigh. He put his hand over mine and smiled at me. Up close, he looked even more tired.

“That’s it, turn it off, you’re going to bed.” I glanced at the screen. He had his Kinnetik email open. “Brian, it’s 11 PM, no one’s expecting you to be working now. Come on.”

He sighed and closed his email program and turned off the computer while I stayed there and watched. He was easily distracted late at night. I knelt in between his legs with my arms around his waist and my head against his stomach. He put his arms around my shoulders and we held still like that while his computer shut down.

The monitor went black and we both just stayed where we were, me pressing against him and him lightly holding onto me. I felt warm and sleepy but almost hyper-alert, feeling his pulse beating all through his body and his breath moving in and out under my ear. And his hands, moving just a little on my shoulders, one of them sliding closer to my neck, and the other moving down onto my upper arm.

I felt him lean down and kiss the top of my head. “Hey.”

I looked up at him and smiled. “Hey.”

He kissed my mouth then, and I felt a kind of rush of desire and love all mixed together. It took me by surprise. I’d have let him push me down on the floor right there and fuck me, just to have him inside of me and all around me, right away, that minute, because I didn’t want to wait even long enough to go upstairs or take off my clothes. But he just kept kissing me, his tongue sliding around inside my mouth, his hands moving on me so gently it drove me crazy.

I pulled his face into mine harder, and then I stood up and took his hand and pulled him up, too. He smiled and kissed me again, this time with his hands sliding down to cup my ass and pull me close, bending his knees a little and lifting me up, pressing our groins together.

He smiled against my mouth. “I thought you were worried I was tired.”

I grinned back at him. “I was worried you’d be too tired to fuck me if you didn’t get off the computer right away.”

“Ted thinks keeping a horny 23-year-old happy is wearing me out.” He had his hand down my sweats and my cock in his palm, and his other hand was opening his pants.

“I think…” I kissed him again, slipping my hand inside his pants and down between his thighs to his balls. “I think Ted has no idea…” His tongue was in my mouth again and so I stopped talking for a minute. I finally broke away from him and smiled again. “Ted has no idea how much it would take to wear you out, does he? Tell him it’s a full time job. Even for a horny 23-year-old.”

Brian kissed my forehead and started kissing down my face towards my mouth. I had unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off him.

“Upstairs. Right now.” He had a look in his eyes when he said it, a look I liked, kind of dark and wild. He grabbed me at the bottom of the stairs and kissed me again, and pushed my sweats down around my knees. He had one hand on my ass and the other on my cock, and I got his pants down as much as I could and pressed into him while I kicked mine off.

I stood on the bottom step and suddenly we were the same height. He laughed a little bit as our cocks mashed together, and whispered into my mouth that finally his knees would get a break.

I didn’t really think Brian should talk about whose knees our sex life was harder on, but I was too distracted by the way his tongue was sweeping around the inside of my mouth, and then licking at my lips, to do anything about it. Finally, he grabbed my hand and we went upstairs to bed.

He was on top of me almost instantly, and I spread my legs and felt the rough surface of his pants on the inside of my thighs. I tried to get his pants all the way down but he pushed my hands away and I put them on his upper arms, letting him kiss me and rub his cock on me. I had my legs up around his waist, but loosely.

He slid down my body slowly, licking me on my neck and collarbone, lingering on the curve where my neck joined my shoulder, biting me the way he always did, leaving little marks that sometimes were gone by morning and sometimes weren’t. He had his mouth on my left nipple, his tongue swirling all around on it, then his mouth sucking it, and his tongue back again, and then his teeth, and at that point I started to tighten my legs around him and thrust my cock against his abdomen. I could feel his cock pressing into my leg, and as he moved down lower, I felt the zipper on his pants scrape against the skin on the inside of my thigh.

I dropped my legs down and he started kissing my belly, tonguing my navel and licking all around my stomach. He buried his face in my pubes and then moved back up me, dragging his tongue over my cock and finally getting his pants off and kicking them away. I reached down and got my hands into his hair while he started to suck on me, his fist closing around my cock while his mouth licked and sucked at the head. He was kneeling between my legs and his other hand was on his own cock, jerking himself roughly.

I pulled on his hair and he pulled his mouth away and looked at me. I looked down at him and he smiled and started to go back, but I stopped him again. I tried to talk but had to clear my throat first, and even then my voice sounded scratchy and rough.

“Come here.” He willingly came back up my body, but after he kissed me he started playing with my cock again, and kissing down my chest to my belly, and generally driving me crazy. I got my legs up on his shoulders, my feet resting on his back, and he started licking at my hole, teasing me with his tongue. I bucked up against his mouth, and he laughed a little but kept tongue-fucking me.

I took a deep breath and tried to let myself just sink into the feeling of his tongue in my ass, and once I did, it started to feel really good. I was just kind of floating on it, when I felt his finger pressing rhythmically against my opening, next to his tongue, and I relaxed more and let it in. I still had my legs up over Brian’s back, so I was really open, and he started gently touching my prostate and I opened even more. I covered my face with my arms and just concentrated on the feeling that was pulsing out from where his fingers were stroking me inside, and the gentle touch of his tongue outside.

Brian put a third finger at my opening, and I relaxed a little more, trying to let it in. This one was harder, but he worked it between the two already there and I pushed a little against the pressure, and then it slipped past the resistance. I kept breathing, my arms still over my face, and then I felt his three fingers all swirling on my prostate at the same time but from all different directions, and my ass clamped down hard on the base of his fingers where they were stretching my hole. It hurt, but it didn’t just hurt, it felt amazing too, so I did it again, and this time it hurt less.

I didn’t even know at that point what Brian was doing, if he was going to fuck me or wanted me to come like this, but I just rode the feeling and let him decide. I felt myself start to dissolve and I reached down and slapped at his hand, but he just moved his fingers inside me a little faster and I felt my ass clench hard again, and then my cock started pumping out on my belly and chest.

I lay there panting for a second, and he gently worked his fingers out of me, hurting me a little even though he was careful. I shifted my legs down off his shoulders, and he slid up, resting all his weight on his arms while he stretched out over me. He dropped his hard cock down into the come pooling on my belly, and started to stroke himself back and forth in it, letting more and more of his weight fall on me, until I curled my knees up around his thighs and put my hands in his hair and kissed him.

He started to slide faster on me, and it was slippery and I could feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing into my stomach muscles. He pulled back once and then slid forward hard, and then he tensed and I felt the hot gush of his come on my belly and chest, mixing with mine. He gave a groan and dropped his head down and I sucked on his tongue while he shot all over me, and when he was done he let himself fall all the way on me.

I kept my arms and legs around him and lay there, both of us kind of glued together with our come. He moaned in my ear.

“We should shower.” I kissed his neck when I said it.

He mumbled something. I just smiled and let him fall asleep.

**Brian’s POV**

We got to New York on Thursday, and I had to spend the afternoon meeting with Richard Bohling about the campaign for his club and new restaurant. Justin stayed in the hotel room, his laptop open. He just grunted when I left.

I came back a few hours later, and he was asleep on the bed. No one I knew ate and slept as much as Justin. He rolled over all warm and snuggly when I woke him up, but since we had less than an hour to meet Richard for dinner, I resisted his attempts to drag me into bed with him. Unfortunately, he followed me into the shower and we were almost fifteen minutes late.

Richard didn’t seem to mind, and we joined him at a booth in the back of his restaurant. I hadn’t seen it yet, and it was elegant. He planned on remodeling parts of it, but the main area was beautiful just the way it was.

He and Justin had never met, but I’d told him I was bringing my partner, who had a show at a gallery that was opening the next night. I think he was surprised when he saw Justin, but it was just a flash of expression on his face, and he hid it immediately.

After we ordered, the conversation was mostly about the restaurant and Richard’s plans for it, and when the food and wine came, it was mostly about that. The chef was incredible, the wine list was excellent, but the fact was, there are thousands of equally good restaurants in New York City, and it took more than being good to succeed there. Of course there were a thousand advertising agencies in New York, too, and Richard probably would use one of them, but he’d used me to promote the club in the gay media, and he was at least willing to hear what I had to say about the restaurant, too. Either way, I’d keep doing the club.

“So, how are things at Babylon?”

“Fine, as long as there aren’t any more bombs.”

He laughed a little. “Yeah, not really good for business. Justin, Brian tells me you have a show opening tomorrow, what gallery is it at?”

Justin had been fairly quiet up until then, but Richard's interest sounded sincere. “Armand Collier in Chelsea.”

Richard looked surprised and didn’t hide it. “That’s very impressive. Is this your first show there?”

“It’s a group show, but it’s my third.”

Richard just looked at him, and then leaned back in the booth. “OK, start at the beginning. I’m going to guess you’re older than you look, to be doing your third show at Armand’s gallery.”

Justin just shrugged. It was his least favorite topic. Richard seemed to understand, so he went on quickly. “What kind of work do you do?”

“I paint.”

“Not conceptual art?”

Justin wrinkled his nose. “No, that’s not my thing.”

“Did you see Gerling’s show last fall?”

Justin nodded. “Like I said, not my thing, but I actually like how he got those organic forms to have such plastic textures. It was something you could do in a painting, I think it might be interesting.”

“I saw the show in Boston, actually, but I heard the installation here was better. I didn’t care for it much myself, either.”

After that we went back to discussing the restaurant business again, and when we were done eating, Justin excused himself to go to the rest room. Richard smiled at me, but didn’t barrage me with questions. I was sure he was dying of curiosity.

“I put your name on the list at the club tonight, if you and Justin feel like going out.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but one of the DJs who plays at Babylon sometimes is giving a party and we’re going to that – you know Alfe?”

Richard nodded. “He’s great, he plays at the club sometimes too.”

Justin came back and stood smiling. “We ready?”

**Justin’s POV**

It would be hard to imagine a more boring dinner than the one I’d just sat through, but I did my best to hide it. After it was over, Brian and I went out dancing at a party given by Alfe, one of the DJs from Babylon, who traveled up and down the East Coast doing shows. He invited us to another, private party after that, and we got back to the hotel at about 5 AM. Which was a good thing, because instead of spending the whole day in a state of nerves over the opening, I was mostly sleeping.

The opening went really well. Ted and Blake were there, in town partly to see my show and partly because, as Ted said in the hushed tones usually reserved for papal audiences, “The Met is doing La Traviata.”

I knew the big painting had sold before the show opened, just like Kalli had predicted it would. I thought one or two of the smaller ones had sold early too.

I was standing talking with Kalli and two collectors when Brian came up behind me. I introduced him, and then he stood there probably being as bored as I had been, but hiding it much better. In fact, he seemed genuinely interested in what everyone had to say, about my work, and everything else in the show.

After a while, he and I went over and stood in front of the big painting. I hadn’t titled it, but that’s how we always talked about it: the big painting. It really was huge, and I loved the way it looked in the high-ceilinged space. I hoped whoever bought it had somewhere good to hang it. I was always curiously detached about my paintings after they were finished, though.

I heard Brian sigh. “I miss it.”

I laughed. “You could have bought it.”

He looked at me. “You’d have killed me.”

I kissed him lightly. “I’ll give you right of first refusal on everything from now on. But you’re right, I wanted to see what would happen with this one.”

Brian slipped his arm around my shoulder.

“Well, congratulations, Justin. You’ve just had your second complete sell-out.” It was Armand behind us.

I grinned. “Really?” I sounded twelve.

He smiled back. “Yes. Hello, Brian, nice to see you again.”

“Armand, you too.” Brian was all smooth polished graciousness again. I had to figure out how to do that.

“Justin, I’d like to talk to you about a show for the end of the year – not a solo show, you’re not ready for that, but let’s say, twelve pieces? Do you think you could do that?”

I looked at Armand for a minute and thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, I do. Thank you…”

He cut me off. “I’ll have Kalli talk to you about the details. Congratulations again.” He shook both our hands and left.

I looked at Brian and he was smiling at me. I squeezed his hand and looked at Armand’s back as he walked away.  
 **  
Brian’s POV**

I saw Michael’s car when I got home from work the Monday after we got back from New York. He and Justin were in the studio working on Rage. I went in and said hi, then left them to work while I took a shower and pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, and ate some of the pizza they’d left on the counter.

I was sitting at my computer a couple of hours later when they came into the media room. Justin was rubbing his hand and Michael looked aggravated. I lifted my eyebrows at the two of them.

“Michael says there’s a gallery in LA that wants to do a show featuring drawings from underground comics, and they want to include Rage.”

Michael started to explain, but Justin cut him off. “I googled them, it’s a good gallery. High end.” Which was what I wanted to know.

“It’s a great opportunity for us. But Justin won’t do it.”

Justin looked stubborn. “I’m not having my first show on the West Coast be for Rage.”

“Justin, what difference does that make? It gets your name out there, it’s good for your career.” Michael was looking frustrated.

“No. If I’d shown there before as a painter, I’d consider it. But now, no. Just no. I’m serious, Michael. I’m sorry, but no.”

Michael started to say something else, but I cut in. “I agree with Justin.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s a shock.”

But I shook my head. “No, I agree with him because he’s right, Michael. Not about Rage maybe, but about his own career. If his first West Coast show is for the comic, it’ll hurt him down the road when he tries to show there as a painter. If he were better known as a painter, doing the comic would just make him more interesting, more quirky, more marketable. But becoming known for the comic first will just make it harder for him to be taken seriously as a painter.”

Michael didn’t look convinced, but Justin looked a lot calmer. “I’m really sorry, Michael, but what Brian’s saying is what I’ve been trying to tell you. We have to tell them no.”

I went over to the bar and got out a glass, and then hesitated. “Do either of you want a drink?” Justin took one, but Michael shook his head.

“Can I get a soda or something? I should head out soon.”

Justin went in the kitchen to get him one, and I poured a glass of Jack Daniels. I looked at Michael for a minute, then started to say something, but he held up his hand.

“Don’t bother. I know you think you’re right, and maybe for Justin you’re right. That doesn’t mean it’s right for me, or for Rage.”

I shrugged, but didn’t argue. He was right.

Justin came back in and handed Michael a coke. He looked really tired, and the minute he gave Michael the can, he started rubbing his hand again.

“Have you guys been working, or talking?” I walked over to Justin and started massaging his hand for him. He tensed for a second, but I gave him a look, and he relaxed and let me rub it.

Michael frowned. “We were working before we talked.”

Justin had been having acupuncture every couple of weeks, and as long as he kept going, he was able to draw for longer periods of time. But I was pretty sure most of the drawing he’d been doing tonight wasn’t work, but just a way of expressing his frustration at his argument with Michael. I’d seen him slashing his pencil at a sheet of paper when he was angry, and it made _my_ hand hurt to think about it.

Justin glanced up at me, and smiled a little. He went up on his toes and kissed me. “I’m going to go clean up in there and then I think I’ll go to bed. I’m really tired.”

I kissed him and stood there watching while he walked out the door, and then turned back to Michael.

I must have looked angry, because Michael got defensive. “I thought his hand was better. He told me it’s better.”

I tried to make my face look less pissed off. None of this was Michael’s fault. “It is. He can draw now for an hour instead of 20 minutes before he’s in so much pain he can’t hold a cup of coffee.”

Michael didn’t say anything right away. “I’m not making him draw, Brian.”

“I know. I’m just trying to tell you what the problem is. Do you get it? Sometimes I see him drawing that fucking comic and he’s holding his hand, trying to get enough done for that day without having to start over on the computer.”

I took a swallow of my drink. “Do you know why I bought this scanner? Because half the time he can’t finish what he’s drawing, and he has to scan in what he’s done so far and finish it on the computer. It’s almost like he has to start over from scratch. And you know why the FUCKING scanner’s in here and not in his studio? Because if he knew I’d bought if for him, for that, he’d have been pissed off and probably not used it.” I put my glass down and filled it again.

I knew Michael was looking at me, but I didn’t look at him. He surprised me by walking over to me and getting right in my face. “Brian. Brian, listen to me. Justin’s fine, he’s ok.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Brian, he’s ok. He really is. He’s really ok.” At some point, Michael had pulled me into a hug, and he was patting my hair and just saying over and over that Justin was OK. And I just felt so tired all of a sudden, and I let him tell me that.

He pulled back a little and frowned. “Sit down, over here.” I sat on the sofa and he sat down next to me. I just stared forward.

“Brian… have you and Justin talked about this?”

“What, his hand?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he said, “Yeah.”

“Of course we have.”

I thought he might say something more, but he finished his soda and gave me a hug, and went home.

**Justin’s POV**

Mel and Lindsay were having a housewarming party Friday night, and I drove into the city late that afternoon to meet Brian. My car needed to go into the dealership for its 2500-mile checkup on Monday, and I didn’t want to have to get up and drive in at rush hour, so I was dropping it off that afternoon, and then going to the party with Brian. I walked in the door of Kinnetik, and the receptionist smiled at me. “Hi, Justin. He said you were coming, but he’s on the phone. Go on in.”

I thanked her and walked through his office doors. He had his back to me, and had his phone to his ear, but he wasn’t saying anything. I walked over to the desk and leaned on it, and he turned around in his chair and put a hand on my hip without even looking at me. I glanced down at his computer, but it was just the screensaver.

Finally, Brian interjected something into the conversation. “Eric, I have to go now, let’s just leave all that until the meeting, and I’ll tell Cynthia to figure out the logistics.” Now he looked at me, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that sounds great. Talk to you then.” And he flipped the phone shut.

“Hard day at the office, honey?” I let him pull me in closer, and he rested his face against my stomach. I put my hands on his head.

“Mmmmm. Yeah. People are idiots. Have you ever noticed that?”

I agreed they were. He grinned up at me and pulled me off balance, and I slid down into his lap.

“That’s a very smooth move, Mr. Kinney.”

“I practice it on my interns.” He started kissing me, and then slid his hand down from my waist to my groin, and cupped my cock with his hand.

I put my hand over his, and then he started opening my pants, and I laughed. “Hey! Is this appropriate workplace behavior, Mr. Kinney?”

He just nuzzled my neck and kept opening my pants, and then wrapped his hand around my cock. I wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Is this appropriate workplace attire, Taylor?” And then he squeezed.

I hissed a little, and just then, I heard a knock at the door, and it opened. I bent forward a little bit, but Brian didn’t move, not even to take his hand off my dick.

“I really hope, Theodore, that what’s in your hand is a lot more important than what’s in mine.”

“Excuse me, sorry, ummm, hi Justin. See you at the party, nothing that won’t wait until Monday…” and then I heard the door close again.

Brian and I both burst out laughing. But I put my dick away and got out of his lap. “OK, time for the lesbian housewarming party. You still have to shower and change.” And I pulled him out of the chair.

We stopped at the loft so Brian could get ready. We’d talked about going to Babylon after, so we were both dressed more for that than for Mel and Lindsay’s, but I had pulled a sweater over my t-shirt.

When we got to the front door we both hesitated. Brian seemed on edge. I turned to him and grabbed onto his jacket with my fists and went up on my toes and kissed him. He held onto me and kissed me back, and then looked at me with his eyebrows raised. He still seemed tense.

“Promise to behave tonight and then we’ll go to Babylon. Drugs, alcohol, loud music, sex. All the things you like.” Then I kissed him on the mouth, my whole body pressed against his, and my arms around his neck. Sometimes this approach backfired, but after one last bit of hesitation, I felt him relax and laugh and start kissing me back, his tongue deep in my mouth and his hands coming up under my jacket and gathering me close.

“Oh my God, Brian’s trying to lick Justin’s tonsils.”

It was Deb, carrying a huge foil-covered pan, and Carl behind her on the path. I dropped down off my toes and moved slightly away from Brian, although he kept his arms around me.

Brian grinned at Debbie. “Justin happens to have very delicious tonsils.”

He took the pan from her and opened the door and ushered her in. I blushed a little when Carl smiled at me, but he just shook my hand with both of his, then kind of patted me on the back as he walked in the door. “Good to see you, Justin.” I remembered that Emmett lived in their house. I’m sure seeing two guys sucking face was one of the tamer things he’d witnessed.

“Justin!” Lindsay turned from greeting Debbie, and gave me a hug. Brian was already getting a beer in the dining room.

I hugged Lindsay and then Debbie got me into a death grip. “How’ve you been, Sunshine?”

I smiled at her. “I’m doing great, Deb, how are you doing?”

She slapped my cheek and laughed, and Brian came back and handed me an open beer. “Now, Debbie, leaving red marks on Justin’s cheeks is my job.” I blushed and jammed my elbow into Brian while she laughed.

“You promised to behave.”

He put his tongue into his cheek while he looked down at me. “I thought you just meant I couldn’t do anything terrible to Eli or Monty.”

Lindsay laughed. “They’re not coming.”

I looked at her in surprise. “How come?”

“Oh, Mel can’t stand them.”

Brian snorted. “Every now and then I have to admit it: I agree with Mel.”

Lindsay gave him a look, but smiled at the same time. “Why don’t you remember that and give her a get out of jail free card for the next time you decide to take her on?”

He shrugged. “Mel’s the lawyer, have her draw something up and I’ll sign it.” Lindsay just rolled her eyes.

I took my beer and went and sat down with Michael, who had JR on his lap. “How’s she doing? I miss having them around.”

He was holding her around her waist while she stood on his lap, and I stuck my finger out so she could grasp it in one of her tiny hands. “She’s perfect, as always. You would never believe…”

There was very little I wouldn’t believe at this point about JR, who according to Michael was the world’s most amazing child. I was just waiting for him to suggest Rage and JT adopt a baby, and had a number of answers rehearsed ranging from “Not in this universe or any other” to threatening to stop drawing the comic. Fortunately, before it could come up, Ben came over.

“Michael tells me your show couldn’t have gone better, Justin. That’s great.” Ben always acted sincerely happy when I accomplished something. He was the only one of Brian’s friends who didn’t seem to need to mentally remind himself I’m not a teenager any more every time we started a conversation.

“I was really happy with how it went. They want more pieces for the next show, I’m just trying to figure out how to get everything done in the time I have.”

He nodded and we started talking about how hard it is to be creative on a deadline. Michael excused himself to go get some food, handing JR to Ben. He smiled at me over the baby’s head.

“So, do you miss New York? I grew up there, and there’s really no place like it.”

I shrugged. “I like it. I like visiting more than living there.” Then I grinned. “I especially like visiting it up to Brian’s standards rather than living in it up to mine.”

Ben laughed and started to say something else, but Michael came back, and JR burped or cooed and they got that darling baby Jenny look on their faces, so I went looking for food. I looked around for Brian, in case he wanted to break his rule of never eating lesbian food, and saw him sneak out the front door, probably to have a cigarette. I went and sat down with Emmett.

“Hey, baby! Back from conquering the New York art world?”

I nodded. “Shit, what IS this stuff?”

Emmett looked at my plate with disdain. “Vegetarian lasagna.”

I pushed it around and then took another bite. “I’m glad to be home, though. I have a shitload of work to do, for a show at the end of the year.”

He asked me about clubs in New York, and I told him about Alfe’s appearance at the club Brian and I had gone to, and then went back to the table to see if there was anything more closely resembling food to eat.

**Brian’s POV**

I was sitting on the porch steps, smoking. It was raining and almost dark. I heard the door open and close, but I didn’t look around to see who was joining me until Debbie sat next to me on the top step.

I turned and smiled at her, big and fake. “My, you’re looking lovely tonight, Deb.” She laughed at me.

“I’d have to say the same for you. I guess marriage agrees with you.”

“Justin and I aren’t married.”

She laughed again. “Like me and Carl aren’t married, you mean?”

I was pretty sure I was falling into a trap but I nodded. They weren’t married.

“So I guess living in sin agrees with us both.” She just sat there for a little while, watching me smoke. I knew she’d get around to whatever life lesson she planned on sharing with me before too long.

“What I’m saying, Brian, is you look happy.”

Fuck, was it everyone’s mission in life to tell me I looked happy? I was going to have to work on my facial expressions.

She wasn’t done. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look happy for more than ten minutes at a time since I knew you.”

I shrugged. Most people realized an almost complete lack of verbal response and eye contact meant the conversation was over, but Debbie’s not most people.

She sighed. “Just don’t fuck it up.”

“Deb, stay out of it.” There was absolutely no possibility Deb would listen to that. I had no idea why I even bothered saying it.

“Brian, can we skip the part where you tell me it’s none of my business and get to the part where you shut up and listen to me?”

“That requires large amounts of pot and noodle-based cuisine. I know you don’t have a joint down your bra today, because Carl’s here, and I don’t think the lesbian lasagna’s gonna do it.”

Debbie reached over and pinched my cheek, hard, and then smacked it lightly with her palm. “Just do what I said. Don’t fuck it up.”

I blew smoke out my nose and then turned my head very slightly in her direction and glared at her. She just laughed again and went inside. My glare never did work on Debbie.

I ground out my cigarette and lit another one, and kept sitting there watching the rain falling. I counted to ten before the door opened again, and didn’t have to look around to know it was Justin. He moved towards me without hesitating. Michael or Lindsay would have shuffled around for a while and then said my name. Justin just plonked down next to me on the stair and bumped his shoulder into my arm.

“What did Debbie want?”

“To warn me not to fuck it up.”

“What up?”

“Us.”

Justin was silent for a minute, taking my cigarette out of my hand and taking a drag off it, and then giving it back. I threw it into a patch of mud and old crusty snow on the edge of the path.

He rested his head on my arm, and after a second I lifted up my arm and put it around him. We sat like that for a little while, and then he turned his face and pressed a kiss into my shoulder. “Do you think she thinks you’ll fuck it up?”

That surprised me. Justin knew Debbie pretty well. “No, I guess not. It’s just her way of letting me know she’s onto me.”

Justin smiled at that. “And is she?”

I turned my face to the side and rested my chin on his head. “Sometimes.” I pulled him a little bit closer and he turned and got both his arms around my waist. I wrapped my other arm around him then, too. It had stopped raining and was getting colder. “She’s always been pretty onto me about you.”

He looked at me, his eyes clear but not smiling. “Yeah?”

I nodded and kissed his forehead. “Yeah.”

There are people who find stuff just popping out of their mouth all the time. Michael, for instance, used to pretty much live that way, constantly being surprised at what he just heard himself say. And Justin sometimes gets this look on his face after he says something, and I know he hadn’t known he was going to say it. But what I said next, I knew I was going to say.

“She told me to tell you I loved you.”

He shifted slightly and looked at me, confused. “After the bomb?”

I shook my head. “Zucchini man.” I wasn’t sure he’d remember, but I waited to see.

“Jesus, Brian.”

I didn’t say anything. He pulled back and looked up at me, like he was trying to figure out exactly what I meant. “I wish you’d told me.”

I shrugged. “I thought you knew.”

Justin put his head back down on my shoulder but didn’t say anything right away. “I knew you loved me.” His voice was muffled against me. “I didn’t know you knew you did.”

I laughed a little. “It probably wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“No.” He sounded sad but a little bit like he was laughing, too. “We were a fucking train wreck.”

I put my face down and kissed him, kind of messy. I felt his lips smiling under mine, and I pulled him even closer to me. It was fucking freezing, but I didn’t want to go inside. What I wanted was Justin, naked and wrapped around me, but it was too cold and too public, sitting on the front porch of Mel and Lindsay’s little cottage in Stepfordland. I pushed that out of my mind and we just kept kissing. The insides of our mouths were hot, and the air was cold, and I knew we should stop, but I didn’t, and neither did he.

I felt him shivering and at first I wasn’t sure why, but then I realized he was really cold. He was only wearing a sweater over his shirt. I pulled off my leather jacket and put it around him, and kept my arms inside it, holding him. He murmured but kept kissing me, and started to slide his hands inside my shirt, bringing cold air and making me shiver, too.

“We have to go in.” I was talking right against his mouth. I felt him nod. We stood up and I pulled him in tight again, wrapping my jacket around him and as much around me as I could. I pressed my forehead to his and he gave me a smile, and we went back in the house.

**Justin’s POV**

When we got inside, Brian kept his arm around me for a minute, and then let it drop while he went and got a beer from a big tub of ice on the floor near the table. I saw Lindsay say something to him, and he went off towards the family room with her. I didn’t see Michael around so I assumed some kind of gaming war was about to take place on the expensive electronics Brian thought were so important in Gus’ life.

I went over to the table and got some more lasagna and salad.

I went into the family room and saw Brian sitting on the floor with Gus inside his crossed legs. Brian and Gus were sharing the controls for whatever high-tech combat system they were manipulating, and Michael was sitting next to them. Michael suddenly let out a whoop and slammed his fingers on a button, and Gus looked like he was going to explode.

“Daddy! Daddy! Let me have it, let me have it!” Gus was batting at Brian’s hands on the control panel.

“I’ve got him, I’ve got it.” Brian punched something and Michael groaned, and then Brian let Gus take the box from him. “He is so dead.”

I sat down on the floor next to them and looked at the cataclysm on the plasma TV screen. It didn’t look familiar to me from my days at the magazine, so I had to assume it was new. Of course. Brian probably had all new games shipped directly to Gus from the manufacturer. Knowing him, he’d had Gus enrolled as a beta tester.

Brian glanced at me and smiled, but kept his hands near the control panel. Michael might be down but Brian wasn’t going to let a moment’s inattention let him get up again before he was totally destroyed.

“Who’s winning?” It was Lindsay from behind us.

“We are!” Gus’ voice was breathless.

“They’re CHEATING.” That was Michael.

Brian snorted. “You only say we’re cheating because you’re losing.”

“There’s two of you and one of me.” Michael’s fingers were flying rapidly over the box, and the lack of a six-year-old battling for the controls didn’t seem to be slowing him down. Gus gave an agonized yelp, and shoved the controls back at Brian, who started flailing away as maniacally as Michael was.

Lindsay sat down on the sofa behind us, so I got up and sat with her. I set my mostly empty plate down on the coffee table. She smiled at me. “I heard the show in New York was wildly successful, Justin. I’m so happy for you.”

Gus shrieked again, and Michael yelled “BRIAN!” Brian laughed.

“Thanks. It went really well. He talked to me about doing my own show next year sometime.”

Lindsay moved so she was sitting sideways in the corner of the couch, facing me, one leg drawn up under her. “Justin, that’s amazing. That’s… absolutely wonderful.” She sounded happy but just the tiniest bit surprised. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t able to come, but with the kids…”

I nodded, watching Gus squirming in Brian’s lap. I couldn’t quite see him at an art opening. Just then Michael shouted “NO!” and Brian and Gus laughed insanely, and then Gus got up and started pounding on Michael’s shoulders. “We won, you die, we won, you die!”

Brian was still laughing, and actually, so was Michael, but Lindsay got her mommy voice on. “Brian, the important thing is that Gus learns good sportsmanship.”

Brian gave her a look like she’d grown two heads. “The important thing is that Gus learns to mercilessly crush his opponent and then dance on his grave.”

Michael stood up, still fending off Gus. “Hey! That’s me you’re mercilessly crushing!”

Brian rolled over and got on his knees and grabbed Gus. He put him on his shoulders and stood up, which brought Gus’ head dangerously close to the ceiling.

I looked at Lindsay, expecting her to be pissed, but she was biting her lips and trying not to laugh. “Jesus, Brian, you sound like Mel.”

Brian gave her a pained look and I laughed.

**Brian’s POV**  
  
After endless goodnights with everyone who was still there, Justin and I got into the Corvette. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a little packet with some E, and held it out questioningly so Justin could see it. He laughed and lifted an eyebrow at me, and then fixed his eyes on mine and slowly opened his mouth and put his tongue out a tiny bit. I felt a rush of heat in my groin and took a tab and put it on my tongue. I leaned forward and slowly licked it onto his, nice and wet, then pulled the top on the water bottle, pulled my mouth away from his, took a big swallow, and then kissed it into Justin’s mouth.   
  
When we got to Babylon, I felt the familiar rush of walking into the lights and falling glitter and feeling the heavy beat of the music making the floor pulse under our feet. I rested my hand on the back of Justin’s neck, and knew the moment the E hit him, because he suddenly felt warm and pliant under my hand. He slid himself closer, and I kissed him, loving the way his mouth opened for me. He broke the kiss and pulled me deep into the middle of the dance floor, where the crowd was densest, and then stood right up against me and started to dance.   
  
I had my hands resting on his shoulders, lightly, and he had brought his hands up and was holding my wrists, his head bent forward so that it touched my chest. He slowly slid his hands along my bare arms, tracing each muscle and cupping my biceps, and then moving his hands down the backs of my shoulders and then down my sides.  
  
I let him pet me and stroke me and just closed my eyes and lost myself in the feeling of the music and his hands. I had my head tipped back and he was kissing and licking my throat, his hands under my shirt on my back. Then I felt him slide them around to the front, and down under the waistband of my jeans, and cup my cock with his bare hand. And then I grabbed his wrist and laughed, “We can’t do this in the middle of the dance floor, I’ll get thrown out.”  
  
He didn’t lift his mouth away from my neck. “They can’t throw us out.” He was talking between kisses. “It’s your club.”  
  
We kept dancing and I kind of lost track of time and how many songs they were playing. At some point, I took half a tab of E and gave the other half to Justin, and then we danced some more. I was kissing him, my hands in his hair and his fingers tucked in the waistband of my jeans, when I felt a hand on my back. I jerked my head up and then laughed. It was Emmett.  
  
“Hi boys! I guess this is the detox center for lesbian lasagna overdose?”  
  
Justin threw his arms around Emmett’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. “Em!”  
  
Emmett looked at Justin’s flushed face and rolled his eyes. “Still need to drug the boys into submission, Brian?”   
  
I just stuck my tongue out at him.   
  
Emmett glanced over to the edge of the dance floor. “Guess who else had too much lesbian family life? You’ll never believe it.”  
  
I looked and saw Michael and Ben dancing. “I’d have thought this was way past their bedtime.”  
  
Just at that moment I realized Justin had danced off out of arm’s reach, and I hauled him back in. He bounced against my body and giggled, and then licked his lips. I put my hand on the back of his neck, and the other on Emmett’s shoulder, and steered them over to the bar. “Time for a water break.”  
  
I got Justin a bottle of water and made him drink it, and got beers for Emmett and me. We stood there watching the lights and the dancers for a while. The DJ that night was incredible, and I turned to ask the bartender who it was. Justin had his head tipped all the way back and was staring at the lights flashing across the ceiling. Maybe that last half E was a bad idea.  
  
“Hey!” It was Michael and Ben, looking sweaty and thirsty. I handed Michael my beer, and raised an eyebrow at Ben. Justin chose that moment to burrow into my side, and I got my arm up and around him and kept it resting lightly on his shoulder, where I could slap it over his mouth if the brain/mouth filter got disconnected again. Next time I was going to have all my friends banned from the club before Justin and I went out.  
  
“Beer is great for me, too. Thanks.” I ordered two, kept one, and handed the other to Ben. He was looking at Justin and trying not to laugh.  
  
Justin was licking my neck but I tried to follow the conversation anyway. Emmett was babbling on about the party, and what he’d have done differently if the girls had let him plan it. “For one thing, I can tell you, there’d have been meat in that lasagna.”   
  
Michael laughed. “My mom and Carl said they ate before the party. And my mom MADE the lasagna.”  
  
Ben laughed. “Michael? WE ate before the party, too.” Ben had a disturbing affinity for tofu but he did eat meat. No one packed on muscles like that without a certain amount of good old-fashioned animal protein.  
  
Michael nodded. “Steak.”   
  
I laughed. “Good to see you boys haven’t given up ALL the vices. Yet.”  
  
“How about you, Brian? Any vices you gave up under the lesbianic influence?” That was Emmett, and he was looking way too smug. I shot him the dirtiest glare imaginable, but he just looked innocent. I regretted having let Theodore live.   
  
Justin lifted his head from where he was molesting my neck and smiled at me. “Let’s dance some more.”   
  
I thought it was a good time to get out of there, so I let him take me out to the dance floor and thought again how good the DJ was. Or maybe it was the little hit of E I’d had, or maybe it was Justin doing whatever it was he was doing against me. It was technically dancing since he was doing it in time to the music, but I was pretty sure no one else would agree with that. I just held onto him and kissed and licked and nuzzled whatever part of him was nearest my mouth, and let the music pound through me.  
  
Justin had his arms around my neck, and his t-shirt was riding up, and I slipped my hand flat against his bare belly. He pulled back a little so I could have some room, and just as I was about to stick my hand down his pants, I realized I was seriously planning on jerking my boyfriend off on the dance floor of Babylon in front of half of gay PA and a least a dozen of my employees. I mean, that’s what the backroom was for. And the club office. And the VIP room. And the loft. And the house.  
  
So why was my hand down his pants?  
  
“Looks like you boys could use some WATER. The thing is, are you going to drink it, or should I have them turn a hose on you to cool you down?”   
  
“You know, Emmett, what would happen to your sex life if I had you banned from Babylon FOREVER?”  
  
He just laughed. I left him and Justin dancing and went to the bar to get a drink. While I was there Michael came up behind me. “Hey!”  
  
“You’re out late.”   
  
“Ben’s off next week, so we thought we’d have some fun. He’s dancing with Justin and Emmett, I came to get something to drink.”  
  
“Be my guest.” I nodded at the bartender, who got Michael a beer. I downed my second shot.  
  
He grinned at me. “So, you look happy.”   
  
“I’m going to kill the next person who says that to me.”  
  
Michael just laughed. “Yeah, I really just said it to piss you off. It must be hard on the old Kinney mystique, to have that stupid grin on your face all the time.”  
  
I looked at him but didn’t say anything.  
  
“That doesn’t work on me, Brian.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The death glare.”  
  
“I’m trying to remember why I haven’t had you banned from the club.”  
  
He laughed and threw his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go get our husbands or dates or whatever the fuck you’re calling Justin these days.”  
  
“I call him Justin. It has a certain ring to it, given that it’s HIS NAME.”  
  
Michael rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. You know something, Brian?”  
  
It was my night to have Novotnys try to enlighten me. “I’m fairly sure nothing on earth I could possibly do could stop you from telling me.”  
  
He just laughed again. “You. Are. PATHETIC.”   
  
**Justin’s POV**  
  
I was dancing with Emmett and Ben when Brian and Michael re-appeared. I was still feeling pretty happy, but not quite as high as before. Brian of course had a bottle of water and he stood there and watched while I drank it, and didn’t let me kiss him until he was sure I’d swallowed.   
  
But it was a really, really nice kiss so I forgave him.   
  
“Let’s get out of here.” He was whispering in my ear.  
  
I whispered back, although I had to go on my toes to reach his ear. “I thought you were going to fuck me in the backroom?”  
  
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Not with this audience.”  
  
“I thought you got off on an audience.”  
  
“Not THIS audience.”  
  
“Well, you should have them thrown out.” It seemed perfectly logical to me.  
  
“Or we could go to the loft.”   
  
I thought about that. “That sounds kind of hot, let’s do that.”   
  
Brian smiled at me and put his hand on my neck. He turned us around to Michael, who was dancing with Ben and Emmett. “Night, boys. The bar is on me, have anything you want. Even you, Em, although I’m sure that will wipe out all my profits for the weekend and I’m going to live to regret it.”  
  
Michael kissed Brian’s cheek and then mine, and we waved at Ben and Em and left.   
  
It was weird coming back to the loft. Even though we’d been there earlier, it was starting to have a non-lived-in feeling.   
  
I wrapped myself around Brian the minute he got the door shut, and he pulled me up off my feet and spun me around and over to the bedroom stairs, kissing my neck. I just tipped my head back and laughed.  
  
“What was that for?”  
  
“I’m sweeping you off your feet.”  
  
He pulled me up the stairs and pushed my jacket off, and then pulled my t-shirt over my head. I tried to get his clothes off, but he was sucking on my nipple and it distracted me. His tongue was flicking around it, and it felt so good, I thought I’d just stand there and let him do it all night.  
  
Then he started taking my pants off, and that seemed like a good idea too, so I changed my mind.  
  
At some point I was on the bed with my ass in the air and his mouth on my hole, lapping at it and opening me up with his fingers, and I was sort of rocking back and forth and humming in my throat, and saying things periodically like “Fuck me, Brian, fuck me fuck me fuck me” while he kept playing with my ass.  
  
Finally he pulled away, grabbed condoms and lube from the bedside drawer and then he was pushing into me while I pushed back on him. He slid into me and it felt wonderful, thick and hard and hot, filling me up and pressing against all the places inside me that I liked touched, the way only Brian ever touched them. I was almost purring. I probably was purring.  
  
He had one hand in my hair and the other on my hip, and he was kneeling behind me, fucking me slowly and precisely, hitting my prostate on every stroke. I had my arms crossed in front of me and my head tucked into them, and my cock was bouncing against my belly every time he thrust into me. He started to slide his hand off my hip and towards my cock, and I knew he was getting close, so I let him jerk me off. He leaned all the way over me, and we were both kneeling together on the bed, and then he pulled me hard into him and I reached one hand back and grabbed his thigh. I felt him start to come, and then I did, feeling the orgasm pulse through me, out of him and through me and out onto his hand.  
  
Brian pulled out of me after a minute, and I rolled over and smiled up at him. “That was amazing.”  
  
“You’re easy when you’re high.”  
  
“You’re amazing when I’m high.”  
  
He smiled at me and started stroking my hair. I wriggled over closer to him. “Brian?”  
  
“Hmmm?”  
  
“Have you told Michael?”  
  
He didn’t pretend not to know what I meant. “No.”  
  
I blinked. “You probably should.”  
  
Brian sighed. “I know.”  
  
“He’s gonna guess or figure it out or hear it from someone.”  
  
Brian looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Did you want to tell him?”  
  
I shook my head. “No, it has to be you.” I reached up my hand and rested it lightly on Brian’s wrist while he played with my hair. He leaned down and kissed me. “Mmmmm.”  
  
He kissed me again, pulled the duvet back up off the floor and over us, turned off the light, and pulled me tight into his arms. I curled up against him and we went to sleep.  
  
When we woke up in the morning, the sun was blazing in my eyes and I moaned and turned away from the light. I was alone in bed, but I could hear noises in the kitchen. I hoped that meant coffee.  
  
I was stretching under the covers when Brian appeared in the doorway with tragedy written all over his face. “There’s no coffee.”  
  
“That’s a misfortune of monumental proportions. Does Starbuck’s deliver?”  
  
He shook his head. “No. Which is so wrong. What are we going to do?”  
  
“Can you fuck me without coffee?”  
  
He reflected on that, and shook his head.  
  
“Then you have to go out and get some.”  
  
“Why do I have to do all the work?”  
  
He had a point. “Because you’re up?”  
  
He threw himself down on the bed and crawled under the covers. “Nice try.”  
  
I laughed and pulled him in close. “Are you SURE you can’t fuck me without coffee?”  
  
Brian nuzzled my neck. I sighed and smiled and tipped my head back and did everything I could think of to show him how nice it would be to go and get some coffee and then fuck me. Then he started to tickle me.   
  
“Way to ruin a moment, Brian.” I was gasping with laughter and swatting at his hands.  
  
“You were trying to get me to fuck you without coffee. You had to be stopped.”  
  
“You need to learn to be more cooperative.”  
  
He stopped tickling me and kissed me. “Do you think we should sell the loft?”  
  
That came out of nowhere. “Why?”  
  
He shrugged. “We never use it.”  
  
“We used it last night.”  
  
“Yeah, and now we have no coffee.”  
  
“You want to sell the loft because we ran out of coffee? Brian. Don’t you think that’s a slight over-reaction?”  
  
“I just wondered what you wanted to do.”  
  
I thought about it. “OK, I have a sort of love/hate thing with the loft.”  
  
“Sort of how you feel about me.”  
  
I rolled right over on top of him and straddled him. “I really don’t hate you.”  
  
“OK. Fine. We’ll just go on a little car trip, it’ll all come back to you.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s true, I do hate you. But I hate the loft more.” I kissed him and stretched out on top of him. “And love it less.”  
  
“Do you want to sell it?”   
  
I lay on Brian’s chest for a while, thinking about it. It was hard, fuck, it was impossible, to imagine the loft being gone. Someone else living and sleeping in the place where we first made love, taking showers in our shower. I hated thinking about that.  
  
And yeah, I had bad memories here, but that wasn’t the problem. There can be bad memories anywhere, I had bad memories of the diner and Babylon and parking garages. I still managed to eat and dance and park the car. It was something else, something I couldn’t quite explain, but it was like the loft pulled me in and pushed me away and I never found anything there I could grab onto and have it hold. Things always seemed to be giving away in my hands there.  
  
Brian’s hands were smoothing my hair. “It’s OK, Justin, we can sell it.” His voice was soft and soothing. I pulled myself up on my elbows and looked at his eyes. He looked tired and a little worried.   
  
I kissed him and shook my head. “No, let’s keep it. But Brian?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Never, ever run out of coffee here again. OK?”  
  
 **Brian’s POV**  
  
I hesitated before pushing open the door to Red Cape. I’d thought about telling Michael I was going to come by, but on the rare occasions when I did, I never called first, and I didn’t want him making a big deal out of it.  
  
It was just after lunch, the slowest time of day in the store, and there was only one customer in the place. Michael looked up when I came in, and his face lit up. “Brian! What are you doing here?”  
  
I went over to the counter and kissed him hello. “Looking for a present for my best friend, he’s a comic book geek.”  
  
The kid came up to pay just then, so I poked around the shelves until he left. I turned around and Michael was looking at me expectantly.  
  
“OK, you’re chewing your lips off. What’s up?”  
  
I sighed. I wondered if they had botox for the lower half of your face, because it seemed to be betraying me constantly these days.  
  
“Nothing, just wanted to stop by and see my oldest and dearest friend. Is that so unusual?”  
  
“Ummm, yeah, how about totally unheard of? Why aren’t you at work?”  
  
I shrugged. “There’s actually no one who can keep me there if I want to leave. I own the place.”  
  
“Must be nice.”  
  
I nodded. Michael sighed.  
  
“OK, Brian, is something wrong? You’re freaking me out.”  
  
I looked at him speculatively for a few minutes. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to tell you something and I was trying to think of a way to get out of it.”  
  
He didn’t laugh. That might have been because it wasn’t funny, although Michael usually laughed at even my weakest attempts at humor. He just waited.  
  
“It’s, ummm, me and Justin.”  
  
He looked alarmed. “Is something wrong with you and Justin?”  
  
“No, no, everything’s fine. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”  
  
“You came by to tell me everything’s fine with you and Justin.” He gave me a “don’t bullshit me” look.  
  
“Something like that.”   
  
He kept giving me the look.  
  
“Forget it.”  
  
“I think I know.”  
  
I shook my head. “I don’t think you do.”  
  
“Yeah, I do. From something my mom said, combined with something Emmett said, with something Justin said, and because you’re obviously about to have a stroke. You and Justin are doing the marriage thing again.”  
  
I shook my head. “We’re not getting married.”  
  
“You mean you’re not having a wedding.”   
  
“OK. Something like that.” Really, if I was going to have a stroke, now would be good.  
  
Michael came out from behind the counter and hugged me. I stood there with my arms down at my sides, and he pulled back and laughed in my face. “God, Brian, you’re such a mess. Why is this such a big deal? You and Justin did this before, I told you I was happy for you then, and I’m happier for you now.”  
  
“Why happier now?” That seemed weird.  
  
He looked at me for a minute. “Because now it’s not coming totally out of the blue. Because it’s like the two of you worked things out. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve actually talked about it.”  
  
I looked at him and opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sure you haven’t discussed it, that would be lesbianic.”  
  
“We talked about it. Once or twice. Briefly.” But I smiled at him. That had gone pretty well. And I didn’t have to have the stroke.  
  
“And this is better because I don’t have to wear a suit.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you’ll still always be my best man.” I kissed him and then he hugged me again, and when I decided we’d had enough lesbianism for one conversation, I pulled back. “Now is when Deb would warn me not to fuck it up.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I haven’t turned into my mother yet.”  
  
I nodded. “Yet.”  
  
 **Justin’s POV**  
  
I woke up before Brian that morning, which I didn’t usually do. He had his head on my shoulder and his leg sticking out from under the covers. I watched him sleeping for a while, his hair all messed up and spiky and his lips parted just a little bit.   
  
The alarm went off and he opened his eyes, and blinked and then smiled when he saw me looking at him. I reached over him and turned off the alarm, and before I could roll back, he pulled me down and gave me a kiss.   
  
I smiled down at him. “Today’s April the fourth.”  
  
He blinked again. “I have a calendar, but thank you for the announcement.”  
  
“Asshole. Don’t you have a doctor’s appointment today?” He grinned at me and I blushed.  
  
My three-month clock had started ticking a while before Brian’s had, so I’d taken the test at Brian’s doctor’s office a few weeks before. I didn’t really know why we’d waited the entire three months for Brian to take his, because I was pretty sure he hadn’t been with anyone but me at least since I’d come home for Christmas, but that was the date we’d set when we decided, and neither of us brought it up again.  
  
After Brian left for work, I went out to the studio. Most mornings I felt sure of what I was going to do, but this morning I wasn’t. I’d gone back to sleep after Brian got up, and slept as late as I could. I didn’t really feel like painting, and I didn’t feel like working on Rage, but I was fucked if I was going to wander around the house aimlessly counting the minutes until Brian came home to fuck me.   
  
I booted up my computer and tried to work on Rage, but I was supposed to be illustrating hot sex scenes for him and JT and that didn’t seem to be a good idea. I wished I’d had something mindless to do, like organize my studio or stretch canvas, but I’d had a lot of energy this last month and there was nothing to do. And the problem with doing mindless things is that they don’t get your mind off what you want to get your mind off.  
  
I eventually got involved in designing a painting on my computer, and finally lost track of time and my nerves. Around 5, my cell phone rang. It was Brian.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hey.”   
  
I waited.  
  
“Everything’s good, I’m coming home now.” I smiled.  
  
“Later.”  
  
“Later.”  
  
And people say Brian and I don’t communicate.  
  
Brian came in the front door at the same time I walked into the hall from my studio. He stopped when he saw me, and smiled. He took off his coat and walked towards me and threw it over the chair when he passed it. I just stood there, looking at him.  
  
He stood so close to me I could feel his breath on my skin. I didn’t move, and he put his hands on the sides of my head and I tilted my head up and he leaned down and kissed me. I was holding onto his wrists, and I opened my mouth and felt his tongue making hard little licks at the inside of my lower lip. I felt breathless and a little bit strange.  
  
Our bodies still weren’t touching, just our faces, and our hands. He broke away from me and smiled at me, and I looked at him and couldn’t help smiling back. He stepped all the way into me, our bodies touching everywhere, and slid his arms around my neck, and rested his forehead against mine. “Hey.”   
  
“Hey.” My voice came out sounding strange, kind of like a whisper. I didn’t mean it to. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of this. But I felt awkward and self-conscious and tentative.  
  
“Have you eaten dinner?”  
  
“What?”  
  
He kissed me. “I said, have you eaten dinner?”  
  
I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.” I couldn’t have eaten.  
  
“OK, well, I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower, and you’re going to go into the kitchen and eat something. Because there’s one thing I can tell you, I have no intention of what I have planned for tonight being interrupted by scary noises from your stomach.”  
  
I burst out laughing. “Ever the romantic.”  
  
He nodded. “Go eat. I don’t care what, an apple, a piece of cheese, a pop tart. Just do me a favor and eat. And come up when you’re done.” And he kissed me again and went up the stairs.  
  
I went into the kitchen and made a sincere effort to find something I thought I could swallow, and settled on a handful of crackers and some cold chicken.   
  
I went upstairs and heard the shower running, and after hesitating a second, I stripped off my clothes and went into the bathroom. He smiled at me through the steamy glass, and I opened the door and got in with him. He pulled me under the water and I felt surrounded by heat and wetness and Brian. I wet my hair and shook my head, and he took the shampoo off the shelf and poured about five times more than I needed into his hand. He soaped up my head, and the excess lather rolled down my body and gathered around the drain, and we both laughed.  
  
His fingers kept massaging my head, and I let it drop forward onto his shoulder. He worked the muscles in my scalp, and then my neck, and then ran his soapy hands down my arms and turned me around so my back was to him.  
  
He rinsed me off and wrapped his arms around me, and dropped a kiss on my head. I leaned back into him, my arms coming up and wrapping around his. We just stood there for a minute, and I almost started to feel nervous again, but Brian turned off the water and opened the shower door and grabbed a couple of towels. We dried each other off.   
  
He was rubbing my head with a towel. “Stop thinking.”  
  
“What?”  
  
He kissed me. “I said stop thinking.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
He rolled his eyes. “If you were a comic book character, the little balloon over your head would be so full of words it would take up the whole page.”  
  
“Technically, I _am_ a comic book character.”   
  
“Well, then ask yourself, what would JT do? He’d let Rage drag him off to his lair and he wouldn’t be THINKING SO MUCH.”  
  
I laughed. “JT isn’t the one doing all the talking.”  
  
 **Brian’s POV**  
  
Justin told me to stop talking, so I walked him backwards into the bedroom and fell down on him, pushing him back onto the bed and mauling his mouth with mine. I didn’t want one inch of space between us, I wanted his bare skin on me everywhere.   
  
We were both still a little damp from the shower, and I pushed his wet hair back off his face while I kissed him. He didn’t seem nervous anymore, but he had his eyes closed. He’d opened his legs when I fell on top of him, and I crawled up onto my knees between them, still kissing him.   
  
He opened his eyes and looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, and gently started stroking the skin inside his thighs. He shivered and kept his eyes on mine, and I leaned down and kissed him again, softly. He reached his arms up around my neck and pulled me into him, and all the soft touches and sliding skin suddenly changed into heat and want, just like that. Just with the feeling of his legs wrapping around me, and his cock pressing against mine, and Justin saying my name.  
  
I picked up the lube and squirted some on my fingers and reached down between Justin’s legs and started circling my finger around his hole. I gently put my fingertip just inside, then circled again, and then slid it all the way in, and he just kept looking at me, his lips parted and his breath shallow.  
  
I swallowed, and he noticed, and smiled a little. I leaned down and kissed his smile. I licked his lower lip and the corners where they turned up, and then I gently licked the inside of his lip and slipped a second finger in next to the first.   
  
His ass gently closed on my fingers for a second, and then I kind of lost it, and pulled them out and just sat there staring at him. He grinned at me and I grabbed the lube again, and his hand, and poured some into his palm, and put his hand on my cock. He put it on me, keeping his touch light. I groaned a little anyway and just for a second he squeezed me hard. I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away, and leaned down and bit his lip.  
  
“I don’t need any extra help tonight, thanks anyway.”   
  
Justin laughed and butted into me with his head. “OK.” And then he bit his lower lip, just for a second.  
  
I settled back on my heels, in between Justin’s legs, and he reached out and took my cock and put the head right at his opening, and then I put my hand over his, and he took his away. I took a breath, and started rubbing the head of my cock around his hole. Justin groaned and closed his eyes, and grabbed my wrists and held on.  
  
Anyone who would think I was fucking Justin raw just because it would feel good was nuts. Fucking Justin with a condom any way possible - against a wall, in bed, from the front, from behind, slow, fast, rough, gentle - felt better than anything else I knew.   
  
But doing it bare did feel good. Just the sensation of the wrinkles of his hole against the head of my cock, the feeling of them rubbing against the slit while my precome leaked out, made me groan and close my eyes and drop my head down.   
  
Justin looked at me and licked his lips. “I can feel that.”  
  
I just nodded. I pressed in a little harder, and he gripped harder on my wrists, and then I felt the head slide in and Justin’s ass clench down on me and I groaned. I just hung there, panting.  
  
“Jesus, Justin, don’t do that.”  
  
He laughed, and he sounded nervous again. “I didn’t mean to.”  
  
I had to laugh too, then. “Christ, it’s like we’ve never fucked before.” I bent forward and he curled up a little, and I touched my forehead to his. Then he put his mouth at my ear and whispered.  
  
“Fuck me, Brian.”  
  
I pushed in a little more, and then stopped again. He stayed absolutely still. I bit my lip and pushed again. It was…. hot. The most overwhelming feeling I had was how hot and tight it was inside him. There was always pressure and heat, but not like this, not so wet and textured, not with every movement, even just Justin breathing, flickering over the skin of my cock.   
  
I moved again, and went deep into him with one thrust, and then he clamped down tight again and I just fell onto him and started fucking him. His legs were up around me and his hands had gone from my wrists to the backs of my thighs, under my ass, and he was pulling me into him hard. And I just gave into it, and I guess he did too, because he was tightening on me so much that I felt my balls pull up and tingle and something hot and powerful build up at the base of my spine. And then it all just exploded out of me, and I came and came, flooding into him while he closed his legs even tighter around my back and gripped me with his hands, holding me as deep inside of him as he could.  
  
Sometimes when I came like that, I would just fall down on him and not move until I could breath again, but that night I grabbed his hand and pulled it down, and held it where my cock was buried inside him, and pulled out a little. His fingers closed on my cock as I pulled it out, and then traced the edge of his stretched hole where it ran all around my dick, all slippery with lube and come.  
  
Justin groaned, and I pulled all the way out. I slid down his body. Everything was wet and I just buried my face in him, rubbing my lips and cheeks all over his cock and his pubes and then sinking my tongue into his asshole, tasting come and knowing it was mine, while he grabbed my hair and pushed himself into my mouth. I licked and sucked and kept his thighs spread with my hands, and then I crawled back up Justin’s body and tongued the come from his ass into his mouth.  
  
 **Justin’s POV**  
  
From the minute Brian touched his cock to my hole, I felt like my body was totally out of my control. I hadn’t expected his cock to feel that different, but when he rubbed his slit in the skin around my opening, I could feel it, and the precome leaking out felt hot, hotter than the lube, hotter than my skin.  
  
Once he was inside me, what was different at first was that Brian totally lost control. And I didn’t care, because when he started pouring into me, it was hotter and wetter than I’d even thought it would be, and I just held onto him and felt it filling me up inside.  
  
I grabbed onto his hair when he started licking his come out of my ass and off my thighs, and then he kissed me and I tasted his come in his mouth. I was lying there licking it off his tongue, and then he pulled away and reached down for the lube on the floor next to the bed. He poured it into his palm and started to slick my cock with it, and I thought he was going to jerk me off.   
  
But he lifted himself up over me, straddling me, and reached his lubed fingers around behind himself and slid one into his ass.  
  
I clenched my fingers down on his thighs so hard they left white marks. Brian was breathing and rocking on his finger, and I brought my knees up behind him. He moved forward and grabbed my aching cock in his hand, and pressed the head to his hole, and let himself sink down onto it a little.  
  
I’d never fucked Brian this way. In some ways being on top gives you a lot more control of the fuck, but in other ways, it can be too much: too deep, too intense. So I tried to hold still and let Brian lower himself onto me slowly, but when I felt my head slip past his impossibly tight opening, I just couldn’t. I thrust up into him and heard him give a little gasp, and I tried to hold still again, but he settled himself onto me hard, and that was it. I pushed up once more, and then twice, and I was pouring into him.   
  
I opened my eyes and Brian was grinning down at me. He lifted himself off me carefully, biting his lip at the pain, and then taking a big smear of my come out of his ass, and bringing it up to my face and then kissing me while we both licked it off his fingers. He was lying next to me, partially on me, and we were both laughing.   
  
Brian pulled me tight into him and rolled over, and I curled up against him, with my head on his shoulder, and we just lay there, our hands touching. I couldn’t stop smiling, and I kept having to kiss his chest. He was just stroking my hair like he always did, and when I looked up at him, he was looking at me, and he smiled too.  
  
We fell asleep like that, but Brian woke me up a little while later and fucked me again, lying across my back and moaning and biting my neck when he came, his hand closed around my cock and my come spurting out onto the sheets. And then I woke him up just as it was getting light, and he fucked me with my arms and legs wrapped around him, like the first time, his tongue in my mouth and my ass clenching around him while we both came.   
  
I was lying there with Brian mostly on me, and neither one of us could move much beyond playing with each other’s hair and fingers.   
  
“Last night was the first time that we both had a first time of something at the same time.” Great example of my highly developed verbal skills.  
  
Brian kissed my neck lightly. “The second time.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“That’s the second time we’ve both had a first time together.”  
  
It took me a minute to think about what he could have meant, and when I thought of the only thing it could be, I got tears in my eyes, which I hoped he wouldn’t notice. I kept my head tipped back and just let them run off the side of my face. There were only a couple.  
  
“Don’t cry, Justin, or I won’t fuck you.”   
  
I laughed in a weepy kind of way. “Yeah, right. You won’t fuck me.”   
  
He dragged himself up and leaned over me, his hands on both sides of my face and partially in my hair, right across the tear tracks. He kissed my left eye, and then my right eye. “Don’t. Cry.”  
  
He rested his head in the bend of my neck, his arm across me, one hand still in my hair. I wasn’t crying anymore.  
  
I wriggled a little bit, trying to get more comfortable. “My ass is sore.”  
  
He snorted. “Yeah, I bet.” He sounded kind of proud, actually.  
  
“Not as sore as I’d have thought, though.” Considering.  
  
“It’s the incredible healing power of my semen.” He sounded totally serious right up until the last word, when he started to laugh.  
  
I bit the arm that was nearest to my mouth.   
  
“HEY!”  
  
“Just rub some of your amazing healing semen on it. It’ll be fine.”  
  
I found some inner reservoir of strength and rolled over on top of him when I said that. He grabbed my wrists and I straddled him with my weight on his outstretched hands for a minute. Then I got my arms free and dropped down on him and started tickling his sides, and he tried to buck me off while he laughed. I knew he’d win, so I gave in right away. Besides, I was exhausted. He rolled me over and lay on top of me. He didn’t try to tickle me, because he was exhausted too. But not too exhausted to say something.  
  
“I love you.”  
  
I lay there for a minute. Brian never said that in bed. Never. He never had, even once. Fuck, I was not going to cry again.  
  
“Oh god, now you see why I never say it?”  
  
I nodded. “That’s the thing, right? That you meant before, the other first time?”  
  
He kissed my neck and didn’t look at me. “Yeah.”  
  
I didn’t say anything but he pulled the duvet up off the floor and wrapped us in it. I pulled him as tight as I could and we fell asleep that way, in a tangled up pile in the middle of our wrecked bed, every pillow and blanket and sheet on the floor.


End file.
